Three sumo wrestlers worth of carbon dioxide per computer
By
23 Mar 2009
With the world’s current focus on the global economic crisis, scientists’ dire warnings about the impact of greenhouse gases on our home planet Earth seem to have fallen down the priority list. The business hip-pocket nerve seems far more sensitive than peoples’ health and lungs.
A stimulating presentation last week at the CIO 2009 conference in Singapore served to remind us all that the environmental issue remains crucial, whatever happens to the world economy. About 110 senior IT executives attended CIO Asia magazine’s annual conference in Singapore and the ‘green message’ was certainly a wake-up call.
The presentation was by Sundeep Khisty, the Asia Pacific Japan green practice leader for EDS, an HP company. He recommended that executives treat climate change as a mainstream business issue and as a business strategy. Executives should, he said, make business investment decisions and technology selections that are low in carbon.
Sundeep said organisations should know their carbon footprint and take steps to reduce it proactively before governments inevitably step in to mandate this through legislation.
Two per cent of the world’s greenhouse gasses
In his presentation, Sundeep highlighted that the ICT industry currently contributes about two per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases, roughly equivalent to the airline industry. PCs and monitors, he said, produce about 39 per cent of these planet-heating gases, followed by servers, including cooling (23 per cent), fixed line telecoms (15 per cent), mobile telecoms (nine per cent) and LAN and office telecoms (seven per cent) plus printers (six per cent). I found it interesting that the various telecoms systems were the number two greenhouse gas pump, after PCs and monitors.
What also surprised me was Sundeeps’ highlighting of Gartner research which showed that the top three industry sectors, measured by carbon emission intensity, are currently government, financial services and retail. The energy industry and manufacturing come fourth and fifth. Government is number one, so they certainly have a lot of environmental order to bring to their own houses, while also providing a lead to the community. Financial services, currently perhaps feeling the most pain from the banking crisis, seem to have much to gain from adopting a more cost-effective, environmental perspective.
Energy bills will account for 50 per cent of IT budgets
Other points in Sundeep’s presentation that made me sit up and take notice were his highlighting of Gartner’s view that energy bills traditionally account for 10 per cent of IT budgets, but soon could account for more than 50 per cent. The research house calculates that energy prices are increasing by 20-30 per cent and will become the second most expensive line item after labour.
And, get this, a single computer, left on 24 hours a day, will cost you up to S$224 in electricity costs a year, and dumps approximately 680 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the world’s atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of about three sumo wrestlers.
Sundeep said EDS understands the new challenges of climate change on IT organisations and, through its carbon emissions management service (CEMS), is committed to reducing clients’ carbon footprint by up to 40 per cent, along with a reduction of total cost of ownership by up to 30 per cent.
It’s presentations like Sundeep’s that provide powerful reasons for senior IT executives and the tech-obsessed (such as me) to make time to attend valuable industry events, such as the CIO Asia magazine annual conference, to discover the real state of the world and where camouflaged IT cost savings can be achieved.
Ross O. Storey, currently the Managing Editor of Fairfax Business Media Asia, is responsible for the editorial content and production of MIS Asia, CIO Asia, Computerworld Singapore and Computerworld Malaysia magazines.
