Net zero

Green IT solutions

In the past, businesses would talk about going ‘paperless’ as an eco-friendly IT policy. And while it’s important to minimise the amount of paper that an organisation generates, the far bigger issue has always been how much energy a company uses in its IT operations.

Left unchecked, the combined computing power of an organisation can become an operational concern. When adding up the energy being used by internal computers, remote laptops, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the company’s power bill can become enormous.

If that were the end of the story, maybe that would be an acceptable cost. But one of the biggest IT expenditures is actually HVAC. The costs to keep a server room cool during the hotter months can be significant.

So what’s the solution? Let’s check out some green IT solutions that are being used all around the world to reduce a company’s energy bills and create a more eco-friendly IT department.

David Plas - Equans collaborator wearing branded AND

What is green IT?

Green IT is a way of measuring and encouraging sustainable and eco-friendly technology in an organisation or business. Each organisation uses different metrics to determine exactly how green their IT solutions are, but some common themes are almost universal:

Lower energy consumption is preferred, assuming there’s no other long term ecological impact to consider. Generally speaking, less energy used = less environmental impact.

Another concept to keep in mind that has a direct connection to green IT is server consolidation. Maintaining a proper climate controlled and secure environment for corporate servers is a costly and energy intensive task. Maintaining multiple server rooms across multiple sites is far more expensive and ecologically unfriendly than taking advantage of just a couple of more centralised facilities, or possibly a Cloud service.

While concepts such as garden roofs and other horticultural efforts are sometimes associated with green IT, those are more related to carbon offset than the low E solutions that make green IT efficient.

Eco-friendly IT tips

Certain policies and actions lead to better green IT solutions than others. For example:

Making use of cloud services

Cloud services induce massive economy of scale[1] . That means they get bulk pricing for everything: Energy, rackspace, hardware, software licences, and maintenance contracts. It’s difficult, perhaps even impossible to beat their costs as long as the service itself is appropriate for your projects.

Public Clouds build in HVAC costs to their subscription models, and even Private Clouds take advantage of consolidating all of that computing power in one place, so that it can be shared more precisely between projects. Using public or private Cloud resources almost always leads to a more eco-friendly IT department, assuming that it meets the security and access speed considerations of the company.

Research is required to assess the Cloud provider’s green credibility and power consumption profile, of course. But assuming they meet expectations, they can become a vital component of a green IT plan.

If access speed is an issue, it might make sense to use a local Cloud or server instead of a remote one. But there is another option for high speed access, if it is available in the site’s proximity.

Edge networks

Rather than spend the money and energy required to create and maintain a local server room, only to realise that the process will need to be replicated for every site in the organisation, consider making use of edge networks. It can be considered a direct connection to the company’s most used resources.

Edge networking gives a company dedicated routing equipment so that they can bypass public traffic in order to rapidly reach corporate data centres. Ultimately, these server farms should be in the geographic centre of the company’s various branch offices.

A well-designed edge network setup means that one corporate Cloud solution is required across multiple campuses. This can drastically cut down on hardware, computing energy, and HVAC costs.

Remote work policy

A technique that can significantly impact a corporate carbon footprint is to automate or script as many IT functions as possible.

This will allow the company’s IT employees to work remotely. Remote IT work is ecologically effective for several reasons: It cuts down on fuel consumption[2] , it improves the efficiency of server rooms since they stay sealed as much as possible, and it improves average worker efficiency and accuracy.

Doing as much remote work as possible goes hand in hand with other green IT solutions, such as public or private Cloud use. At the same time, it minimises office HVAC use and allows for dynamic smart building techniques to be used, like hotdesking. The business can benefit from remote working on multiple fronts, while offering added fringe benefits to customers and employees alike.

Designing low carbon websites

One of the major components of green IT solutions is creating low carbon websites for both internal and external use. A low carbon website uses the minimum amount of energy possible for the average visitor.

The first consideration needs to be platform optimization. Making sure that the site is mobile friendly is a big part of avoiding wasteful backend transactions that will sap the server’s resources. Responsive design and mobile friendly navigation will make sure that visitors can find what they need the first time, avoiding reloads and re-visits in the future.

Secondly, image optimization is critical no matter what your customers’ preferred platform might be. Choosing image formats with good compression and resizing large images to avoid excess bandwidth use are both critical to the design of a low carbon website.

Finally, choosing an eco-friendly Cloud hosting service will support businesses that share a company’s eco friendly IT principles. They often use renewable energy, low-E computing equipment, and high efficiency HVAC solutions.

Source : https://www.xomnia.com/post/ai-carbon-footprint/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/18/people-who-work-from-home-all-the-time-cut-emissions-by-54-against-those-in-office
https://www.greenit.fr/benchmark-green-it-en/

Building green IT solutions into your sustainable development

When designing a new sustainable development with green IT solutions in mind, there’s one phrase to keep in mind: Go big or go Cloud.

Designing a building with small server room spaces in mind can be inefficient. These days, companies are often best served by either leveraging Cloud services, or building an absolutely massive server room and taking advantage of economies of scale. When designing a building with a large server room in mind, remember to include raised floors, as well as adequate and highly efficient cooling solutions available. Proper energy efficient climate control, including humidity control, is vital. And make sure to have direct connection points to both power and network sources.

Ultimately, most companies have been going with a Cloud based solution these days, rather than hosting their own servers. If the sustainable development is bespoke to a specific client, they should be asked about their green IT policies and preferences beforehand.

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