Government Technology

In April 2006, then Chancellor Gordon Brown said: “We have a compelling and ever more urgent duty of stewardship to take care of the natural environment and resources on which our economic activity and social fabric depends. So the new synthesis we need is that economic growth, social justice and environmental care advance best when they all advance together.”
    
UK government has set a target for the central office government office estate to achieve carbon neutrality by 2012. The current Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE) targets, announced in 2006, cover all central government departments and their executive agencies.
    
The government’s vision for ICT in central departments is to make the energy consumption of government ICT carbon neutral by 2012, and to make government ICT carbon neutral across its lifecycle.

Energy contribution
Energy consumption on the government estate isn’t falling as much as previously expected, and one major factor in this is ICT. Already, ICT is pervasive in government buildings and across industry via outsourced government contracts. The Carbon Trust estimates that office equipment consumes 15 per cent of the total electricity used in offices, expected to rise to 20 per cent by 2020, with about two-thirds of this energy consumption being attributed to computers.
    
ICT can also be used to generate environmental benefits elsewhere in government operations. It’s a key enabler for most Transformational Government programmes activity, for example through enabling tele- and video-conferencing, mobile and home working.
    
The government’s CIO was last year asked to work with industry and draw up evidence-based proposals for improving the sustainability of government ICT used both in-house and in outsourced contracts with service providers. This has now been published as the white paper ‘Greening Government ICT’, which covers central government departments and their executive agencies.

Objectives
By January 2009 all departments are to address and consider the impact on carbon emissions of all new ICT purchases, building on existing mandatory ‘Quick Wins’ standards for certain aspects of sustainable ICT purchasing across government.
    
The SOGE targets state that central government’s office estate will be carbon neutral by 2012. Government ICT will support this by lowering the power consumption of equipment used, including outsourced contracts and services. ICT will also support the wider sustainability agenda and the SOGE targets, for example reducing emissions through changes in business processes and working practices, minimising transport and reducing waste through minimising paper use.
    
By 2020 government aims to comply with and, where possible, lead and go beyond global best practice for sustainability across the whole ICT lifecycle. This will cover carbon neutrality and sustainable processes for use of materials, water, accommodation and transport, in the manufacture, use and disposal of ICT.
    
Off-setting should be used as a last resort and only through an accredited scheme in line with Defra’s code of best practice. The Business/IT Strategy will be extended to include a green ICT plan that shows how the department will deliver the strategic objectives above.
    
The lifecycle of all ICT purchases should be extended to their natural demise either caused by failure, inability to support the business objectives of the organisation, excessive maintenance costs or excessive carbon footprint and energy consumption, as opposed to frequent automatic refresh and replacement programmes. This should occur when such extension will have environmental benefits across the product lifecycle and re-deployment of the equipment is not envisaged.
    
The overall number of PCs and laptops used by the organisation should be reduced to reach as close to a ratio of 1:1 as possible unless there are exceptional circumstances. A range of active device power management actions to significantly reduce power consumption should also be implemented.
    
The number of printers should be reduced. These should be replaced by multi-functional devices where security issues allow and use green printing defaults wherever possible, such as double-sided and multiple pages printing.
    
Average server capacity utilisation should increase to achieve a minimum of 50 per cent where possible as part of a commitment to comply with the forthcoming European Code of Conduct for the operation of Data Centres.
    
All procurement documentation must specify environmental criteria for ICT in line with advice being developed by the OGC Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement.

Progress to date
A Green ICT Delivery group has been established by the CIO Council to increase awareness of best practice for improving green ICT and to provide support and advice to departments in its implementation.
    
A Green Scorecard that benchmarks organisational behaviour, policy, governance, procurement, energy efficiency, labelling and disposals, in both internal and outsourced structures is being piloted.
    
To encourage the early implementation of some simple but effective actions, a list of immediate steps has been developed. Immediate savings can be made by, for example, turning off computers and peripheral equipment overnight; removing active screen savers; and re-using or re-distributing legacy ICT and related goods to ensure goods are fully utilised for their whole life via a credible, traceable provider.
    
When developing the business case to support action plans, departments should consider the funding and resource equipments and look for self-funding opportunities and other possibilities including the Partnership for Renewables and The Salix Fund. Departments should also consider opportunities for sharing ICT services with other departments that may have the potential to increase energy savings.
    
Recognising that new lessons, practices and technologies will continue to appear, the CIO Council will evolve the toolkits and lists of actions and provide repositories of best practice and evidence to ensure they continue to reflect current best practice.
    
Progress against this overall HMG action plan will be reported in the Transformational Government Annual Report and departments will need to report progress against SOGE targets in the usual way.