The game changed. Until now, technology managers sought to optimize the balance of productivity and costs. Technology was carefully evaluated in terms of an ROI which typically included a mixture of hard and soft savings. Hard savings were easy to understand, but the soft savings were typically summarized into productivity gains. This model worked reasonably well, and technology marched forward. Now the CIO has to manage to a new goal--to save the planet.
This is quite the honorable goal and much broader than streamlining TPS reports. Simply put, technology must now do more than deliver dollar savings and productivity gains--it must deliver on reducing organizational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Technology managers must now maximize productivity and energy efficiency with their limited budgets. No longer are bus passes or recycle bins acceptable as proof of an environmental commitment.
A green IT and telecommunications infrastructure requires commitment and strategy. In many cases, the technology required isn’t new. Record gas prices in 2008 contributed to increased awareness. Then the Presidential election with the environment and global warming concerns. Green is in, and not just at home. Green initiatives, surprisingly, frequently result in financial ROIs (but not always). So with social acceptance, financial justification, and impending world doom--the time is now for technology leaders to strut their (green) stuff.
To reduce organizational emissions, technology leadership must follow three broad steps:
* Education and awareness
* Efficiency gains in delivering the services
* Replace high carbon aspects of the business with streamlined processes and technology (most impactful phase).
The computer room, its servers, storage devices, and networks all create carbon emissions that can be reduced. But the far bigger carbon improvement comes from actually expanding technology and services to enable other parts of the organization to be far more carbon efficient.
Step One: Education and Awareness
The first obstacle to overcome is information, education, and increased awareness. To be green requires information that just hasn’t been readily accessible--most IT products and services are built around traditional price and productivity models. Evaluating, for example, color printing compares prices, TCO, product reliability, and human interfaces. Technology managers will be able to cite facts and figures around MTBF and price per page--but each model’s carbon footprint isn’t typically evaluated, nor is it easy to do so. The detailed specifications of various technology products frequently omit key information required for assessing energy efficiency measures. This will likely begin to change.
Administrators plug in devices all the time--PCs, servers, firewalls, phone systems, etc. They all look pretty much the same: a power cable and a network cable. But which ones consume the most energy? The plugs may be identical, but consumption isn’t. It is critical to understand the carbon impact of IT so intelligent decisions can be made to reduce it. There are simple devices like a P3 Kill-A-Watt that can be helpful in determining actual usage, and some UPS systems provide measures. The old adage, you can’t improve things without measurements, applies. Which products have the Energy Star ratings and what does Energy Star mean? As efficiency information becomes part of the evaluation, manufacturers will both improve the measures and publicize them. Cars didn’t list MPG until the 1970s.
In 2007, Gartner estimated that all Internet, computing, and Telecom infrastructure worldwide was responsible for 2% of global carbon emissions. May not sound like a lot, but it’s growing quickly. In 2002, it was estimated that 67 million routers were in place and the forecasts for 2020 are nearly 900 million. The fastest-growing component of the infrastructure pie is the data center; more servers, more storage, more HVAC equates to dramatically more carbon emissions.
Step Two: Reduce the Carbon Emissions of the IT and Telecommunications Service Delivery
It is easy to get carried away with determining emissions; if you are trying to figure out an allocation of the FedEx truck’s exhaust that delivered a phone, you are too detailed. Use common sense, reduce power consumption, logistics (things that need to be moved a lot), and items headed for the landfill. The biggest and fastest growing contributor of the IT footprint is the Data Center. And nearly 50%of the emissions with data centers come from cooling. Moving the data center to a location where outside venting is possible for most of the year is a simple solution. There are many areas in the US with average temperatures below 60 degrees. Fortunately, IP technologies make remote computing centers highly feasible. Moving the data center offsite completely to a co-location facility or even the cloud will likely reduce emissions through economies of scale. Many phone systems are now (or soon to be) available as a cloud ready software only solution.
Each server consumes energy. Server consolidation efforts often make sense, but are rarely optimized around energy efficiency. Virtualization technologies offer promising green results. Software should be evaluated on well-"behavedness" so it can co-exist with other applications on servers. Dedicated servers and server based storage solutions should be reduced or eliminated.
It doesn't stop at the data center. Traditional desktops with CRT screens consume significantly more energy than laptop computers. Not buying new equipment? Even better, extending the life of equipment is a quick and cheap way to being green. Thin clients offer even more benefits. A PC/monitor typically consume about 100 watts of power--Sun's Sunray solution combines a hard phone and thin client desktop into a single solution at about 10 watts. Not all like-products use the same amount of energy either. According to The Tolly Group, Mitel POE IP phones consume almost half the energy of comparable phones from Cisco or ShoreTel, saving about 3 watts (3 watts X # of phones X 7x24x365). Cell phones are a surprising culprit due to their power brick chargers which usually consume energy even when not in use. Purchase newer "Smart Chargers" that turn off when not in use (cell phones are expected to continue experiencing explosive growth over the next 10 years).
Several emerging technologies may offer more improvements. Solid state hard drives offer significant energy reductions, already available on some phone systems and various appliances. Cholesteric LCD displays, still in the labs, can hold an image without power. Computer methanol fuel cells could be coming, or computer rooms prewired with DC distribution systems instead of relying on small power supplies per server could lead to major efficiency improvements.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Check out Green Grid for best practices. Green Grid is a membership based organization that offers specific tips and best practices on data center energy efficiencies.
Step Three: Broadly Apply Technology Across the Organization with Carbon Efficiency Goals
Reducing the emissions associated with technology infrastructure is important, but not the big win. The big win is streamlining high carbon processes--just as technology has improved manual processes over the years. Organizations must reexamine their processes from a conservation perspective. For years, IT business analysts were chartered to use technology solely for productivity gains. Consider the evolution of the invoice, initially hand-written on paper, then computer printed on paper (faster and more accurate), to now a PDF emailed to the customer. Sometimes it will be an evolution, sometimes it will be disruptive.
Dematerialization is the substitution of high carbon products and activities with low carbon alternatives. The classic examples are email versus mail, telecommuting versus commuting, online shopping versus shopping. Dematerialization offers significant green savings; consider the digital photo--it isn't just the paper that pictures were printed on, but the film, developing chemicals, driving to get film, driving to drop-off/pick-up photos from the lab, mailing photos. Similar benefits are now being realized in music and movie distribution. What can be dematerialized at your business?
Not all products can be dematerialized, but many of the surrounding aspects can be. For example, a brewery can’t electronically produce beer--but how its ingredients are ordered, inventoried, purchased, and distributed may offer enormous potential for improved efficiencies. The reason is because the systems generally were not designed to minimize GHG emissions. There is a potentially huge opportunity to dematerialize key business processes, including the supply chain, logistics, and internal operations. Dematerialization does not need to disrupt product life cycles. Firmware upgrades dematerialize replacement products. Consider consumer devices such as television sets and cell phones that consumers can now upgrade..
Dematerialization includes good ol' teleworking, which offers huge emission reductions by allowing employees to work from home. The technology required to support the efforts are understood and generally available. It is estimated that 30 million people in the US can work from home. The only thing surprising is the actual adoption rate--in 2005 less than 2% of the US workforce.
Teleworking in the US is largely stymied by trust issues. Many employers position it as a benefit rather than an initiative. For teleworking to really pay dividends, it needs to be a strategy. Employee commuting emissions are part of the benefit, but consider a strategy to realize reduced carbon emissions at the office. Studies suggest that a commitment to teleworking three days a week allows organizations to downsize physical space. Less space results in less energy and less HVAC.
This type of commitment usually requires an organizational cultural shift requiring top-down support. It involves a commitment to enabling technologies and redefined processes. Organizations unwilling to change their processes that rely on paper movement (signatures) or dedicated offices/desks to employees will not realize the benefits of teleworking.
Dematerialization promises hard dollar savings particularly with travel when supported by collaboration tools. Audio and video conferencing technologies, along with e-collaboration capabilities, offer tremendous return on investments without even considering emissions. At one time (long ago) travel was a perk, but not any more. Conferencing technologies completely make sense--they save money, reduce carbon, and employees embrace it.
Unfortunately, many of the conferencing vendors are using exaggerated data or assumptions to calculate their green savings. Numerous vendor models assume every conference offsets travel dollars, but one of the key benefits of conferencing solutions is negligible usage costs, therefore usage increases distort the cute reports. Building a simple model to reflect carbon savings isn't difficult--publicly-accessible data from TRX can provide accurate and simple data on airline carbon emissions.
The emissions associated with office space and buildings represent a technology-deprived area with potentially significant carbon savings. A 2007 McKinsey Report concluded North American buildings are among the most inefficient in the world. Smart Building technology describes a suite of technologies used to make the design, construction, and operation of buildings more efficient (new and existing). It involves intelligent switches and sensors that provide feedback and control to a Building Management Systems (BMS).
The 1980s were MRP, the '90s were ERP, the '00s are CRM, and next up could be BMS: systems that can make lighting and temperature decisions based on a schedule and real time information including occupancy. The two biggest areas of impact are lighting and HVAC. But they can extend to other controls inside and outside the building, such as controlling irrigation systems while considering outside temperature and humidity. A comprehensive solution such as the Solaire building in New York utilizes 67% less energy than similarly sized buildings. This was accomplished through design standards from Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and a comprehensive BMS solution.
This is broader than a telecommunications issue, but certainly telecom is front and center to enable a greener workplace. But the solution does not come from the technology itself, rather it comes from a clear strategy and commitment. The technologies behind teleworking are readily available, but the barriers continue to be human factors. It is an area where VoIP can really deliver an end user benefit. For additional broader and global information, see Smart2020.
This article was written by contributing author Dave Michels. Dave is a principal at Verge1 Consulting and blogs regularly at Pin Drop Soup.com.
