The Rage and Passion Called Green IT
It has been said that Planet Earth will always be the cynosure of all extra-terrestrial eyes and apparently invoke jealousy. Will it always be? No; not if we continue to keep shooting rockets out into the sky, don’t conserve our energy, keep our Air-conditioners on forever and keep plowing down the forests. The least we could do is go green ourselves. Energy is being consumed like never before. According to a study done by McKinsey “The United States is the single biggest energy consumer in the world…” Further, the study also states that “Each person in the United States today consumes the equivalent of almost seven gallons of oil—80 percent more energy than Northwestern Europe, 94 percent more than Japan, and seven times the level of China. As a result, the United States is also the most CO2-intensive country, producing 19 tons of CO2 per capita annually—more than twice the level of Northwestern Europe and Japan.”
Why Go Green
Climatic changes and environmental problems abound today and the accusatory pointing fingers all turn to the Industries and their active role in environmental disintegration. The onus to curb energy demands and ensure that we operate and work towards a cleaner and greener earth starts with the Industry. The Companies will be blamed for it all and before that happens, the tables must be turned and action taken. Why NOT go green when the apparent advantages, cost-savings, reputation reinforcement and other benefits are all up there for grabs?
Benefits of Going Green
The pressure to go green is palpable. Companies all over the world have realized that they either go green or pay for the consequences. The advantages of going green far outweigh any fines imposed on these companies. IT businesses with their networks working overtime are one of the primary contributors to the global environmental distress. A major thrust is on to “go green” as much as possible due to multi-fold reasons, some of which have been listed below:
- Why Oppose and Displease?: Not going green isn’t going to go down well with the stakeholders of any large, publicly held company -- shareholders, creditors, customers/clients, employees and staff -- and can lead to loss of Brand Image and long-standing reputation.
- Saving Costs: Going green can lead to great savings in costs which help boost the company’s bottom-lines.
- Leaner, long-lasting and more efficient assets: The Company’s resources like computers and networks -- hardware and software -- tend to work leaner and save tremendous amounts of energy, thereby contributing to the environment friendliness.
- Increases productivity and induces frugality: A greener Employee is a Productive employee.
How to Go Green
- Virtualization: Virtualization is a beautiful way to go green. In fact, it makes tremendous sense to do so. Not just from for environment friendliness, but also from the space, cost and ease of operations point of view. From an IT perspective, virtualization reduces network appliances and hardware. It increases the overall utilization of storage and servers. By allowing various operating systems and applications to share servers and making it possible to have as many working clients within a virtualization network, server utilization alone can be raised to approximately 70% which corresponds to an equal reduction of the server powering and cooling resources. Virtualization is the right step to take in order to counter the problem of under-utilization of existing resources or making the best use of more resources in the given space constraints. No matter what propels you to tap into virtualization, it is the best way to “go green”
- Bring them together by Consolidating Systems: Efficient centralized management directly leads to the green initiative. ECM (Efficient Centralized Management) can be achieved by purging the excess wiring, machines and other elements of a network, which consume power redundantly. Going wireless is another sure way to minimize electric and electronic waste (e-waste), which is a rather egregious problem that is a natural bio-hazard since it contaminates air, water and air. Europe apparently produces about 20 kilos of such e-waste per capita, per year.
- Collaborate, don’t travel: Knocking off unnecessary travel has obvious benefits that lead to the green initiative; apart from the fact that rarely anything gets done for companies in mindless meetings, half-way across the world. Technology which enables virtual meetings, conferences, online-based presentations and collaboration (like WebEx and Tele-presence) can help obviate the need to hop across continents, save time, improves productivity, save energy, save costs and much more. According to WebEx, a Cisco subsidiary which offers SMBs a range of on-demand collaboration software states that “ presenting a sales pitch with a customer as an online conference, one executive not flying from New York to London can save 2,690 pounds of carbon dioxide from jet fuel”. Now, WebEx certainly has a point there, doesn’t it?
- Centralizing of Branches, Green Supply Chain: Consolidating the storage centers and data centers of your company across all your branches causes a tremendous saving in the facilities usage and energy requirements, apart from logistical benefits. Similarly, fine-tuning your supply chain and requesting vendors to participate in your environment-friendly drive can literally make it all happen. According to greenbiz.com, “A number of leading U.S. companies are providing increasing proof of the link between improved environmental performance and financial gains: The GM Corporation reduced disposal costs by $12 million by establishing a reusable-container program with suppliers; Commonwealth Edison saved $25 million through more-effective resource management. Re-evaluating a company's supply chain -- from purchasing, planning, and managing the use of materials to shipping and distributing final products -- with an emphasis on environmental performance leads to savings.”
- Go Green, Dear Desktop: Most PC’s have features like 17” screens and TFT displays which aren’t making your company greener. Simple acts like adjusting your PC display settings, shutting the computers off when not in use; upgrading only when necessary; purchasing only products which pass stringent “green” tests and are eco-friendly go along way. For instance, a company spends about $76.160 normally without switching off the equipment at night. A simple act of using eco-friendly products and switching off when not in use can bring down the expenses to approximately $11,760.
Take Action
SelectSys offers IT solutions to help you make your business “green” and reduce your operational costs. Visit our Green IT page to find out.