Thinking Ecologically: What About YOUR Carbon Footprint?

- Jessica Vreeswijk, Editor in Chief at GreenItTools (www.GreenITTools.com), says:


97% of IT professionals say reducing carbon footprint is important. Why is little action underway at this point?

1. Attention has been focused on Data Centres - hardware vendors and consultants have been primarily focused on providing products and services to large companies who have data centres where there is a supply crisis predicted in energy in the next couple years. There has been a lot of movement in the data centre area because there are big savings to be had from looking at different methods for heating and cooling as well as reducing the amount of heat-producing hardware required to provide the processing power and storage needs. The ROI is high and there is an imperative as many states in the US have made it clear that there is not an unlimited supply of electricity for fast-growing data centers.

2. Facilities departments are generally responsible for energy costs - as a result, IT managers are not responsible for making sure they are minimizing this cost centre. As with any initiative, cross-functional projects are much more difficult to get off the ground when the costs must be paid by one department while another will benefit. Some companies are now assigning IT managers the responsibility for the energy costs and this will certainly ensure that IT can make the business case for changes.

Many people believe that reducing your footprint in IT is about shutting down PCs and monitors at night. In fact there are many practices, a few of which are listed here:

• purchasing policies to ensure that what enters the door has been manufactured in an environmentally respectful way and can be recycled at the end of its life.
• asset management practices that ensure you get the longest life out of your equipment and use equipment as efficiently as possible to provide your employees with the functions they need.
• ensuring the employees are encouraged to shut off equipment at night including printers, monitors, desktops, laptops and all electronic devices.
• providing the organization with technology that will help reduce the overall footprint by increasing virtual collaboration and enforcing responsible printing habits.

Why are organizations becoming more sensitive to ecological considerations?

There are many possible answers to this question as well. Here are a few of the most compelling I have seen.

1. Increasing media/public relations opportunities - there has been a lot of attention in the media and in politics around ecological concerns. Beginning with the Inconvenient Truth movie, many people began to wake up to environmental concerns at home and are now waking up at work. In some sectors there is significant pressure from investors who are concerned about risk inherent the what appears to be a move towards regulation. Work such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and the G3 reporting framework have legitimized and made measurable the impacts of organizations.

2. Increasing regulatory risks - as mentioned above, states such as California and much of Europe have been adopting regulations that are forcing companies to internalized ecological costs they were previously able to externalize. With the development of carbon markets and a price on carbon emissions, there is now a tangible, tradable, marketable 'thing' that companies can view as a threat or an opportunity.

3. Attracting and retaining employees and customers - many studies have shown that employees want to work for a company that is, at a minimum, interested in understanding and reducing the environmental impact. Particularly the next generation appears to place a high value on working for organizations that match their personal values whether they be social justice, environmentalism or another area that would have traditionally been seen as external to the responsibility of businesses.

Thinking Ecologically: Is Carbon Footprint Important?

- Derek Kober, Program Director of the BPM Forum (www.bpinetwork.org), says:

It's a combination of a need for more education as to the tangible business benefits that can be achieved through more ecological practices in the datacenter and the requirement for more leadership both within companies and in the community at large. This is precisely why the Think Eco-Logical initiative is providing resources and information to educate companies and engaging with advisory board members on best practices and leadership techniques.

One of BPM's study shows that the top reasons that Internet and eCommerce companies are more sensitized to ecological considerations are recent press on the subject, consumer demands for green practices, and the rising costs of inefficient data centers. These factors are in line with the premise of Think Eco-Logical itself -- namely that both the environmental (eco) considerations and the business (logical) benefits are driving sustainability concerns.

Just as within large companies, SMBs should look at defining corporate sustainability policies and guidelines that start with the simple things. For instance, looking at duplex (two sided) printing, better office recycling, turning off computers at night or during long periods of downtime, having timed and low-energy lighting, using alternative means and incentives for commuting to work. Then the next level is to look at the technology infrastructure that supports your business. For example, are your servers and facilities being fully utilized, can you implement simple virtualization techniques, and are you using up-to-date, efficient processors and servers that are now available? It starts at a grass roots employee awareness and participation level and then builds to more systemic environmental improvements.

Data Center Metrics: Not So Confusing

- Tate Cantrell, chief technology officer of Verne Global (www.verneglobal.com), says:

The Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org) has said in the past that the point for measurement of the IT Equipment Power is at the distribution point upstream of the computer equipment at the computer room power distribution units (PDU’s). For most companies, this means at the output circuit breaker at the upstream breaker panel. Google (http://www.google.com/corporate/green/datacenters/measuring.html) on the other hand has encouraged the industry to take the power measurement at the input to the server, excluding even the power cords of the computers in the IT Equipment Power measurements.

Google goes further to encourage data center managers to choose the utility side of their substation when calculating the Total Facility Power for the PUE calculation. This is a bit more specific and a little more challenging than the Green Grid definition of at or near the facility’s Utility power meter.

The well-run enterprise has a goal to increase top line revenue while keeping costs in check and preferably reducing costs over time. The purpose of the data center is to improve worker productivity within the enterprise. With proper direction, improved worker productivity should improve top line revenues. By improving on metrics, data center managers can impact the enterprise by improving worker productivity and thereby top line revenues, while honing efficiency and delivering the data center solutions with reduced cost impact to the organizations.

Without metrics, a manager cannot monitor the ongoing performance of the data center operation. And without a well designed set of metrics that are customized to the infrastructure at hand, a data center manager is unable to properly predict the trends of a data center and will be unable to effectively time projects for capacity increase.