Externus has this week unveiled the Green IT Assessment package aimed at helping organisations to comply with climate change regulations, which will see the NHS having to cut its carbon footprint by 80% by 2050.

 

Helping to drive significant reductions in IT-related energy use and achieving multi-million pound cost savings, the package highlights hotspots within systems where improvements can be made.

 

“Green IT is one of those few occasions where by doing business in a slightly different way, you can have a positive impact on the environment as well as reducing costs,” said Murray Sherwood, managing director of Externus.

 

“In office-based environments there are limited opportunities to reduce carbon in other areas and in some cases IT represents more than half of all energy use. We have worked with companies to achieve a 60% reduction in IT-related energy use and have identified multi-million pound cost savings on IT budgets.”

 

“Green IT is one of those few occasions where by doing business in a slightly different way, you can have a positive impact on the environment as well as reducing costs”

He added that, as a major consumer of natural resources and electricity, IT is directly and indirectly responsible for producing significant amounts of greenhouse gases and toxic waste. In fact, it is estimated that the IT sector is responsible for an estimated 2% of global CO2 emissions – the same amount as aviation, an industry vilified by environmentalists.

 

“Many health trusts already have environmental policies, but these often overlook the role of the IT departments,” he said. “Our Green IT Assessment will help organisations to realign their IT vision and strategy with business sustainability goals.”

 

The initiative considers all aspects of the IT landscape, including data centres and their cooling and power distribution, desktops and laptops, printers and scanners, networks and switch gear and control and security equipment.

 

“Improvements in IT can help an organisation to assess and reduce its overall carbon footprint by adopting more-efficient working practices such as reducing travel and commuting through home working and teleconferencing,” Sherwood said.

 

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