Everyone is now thinking about green issues – from the office to your home – and not only as a means of reducing the carbon footprint, but also of saving energy, fuel and money. The following are some ideas from various sources, which could help do all of this.
There are many well known actions that can be undertaken at work to reduce carbon footprint, fuel and cost, such as setting the printers for double sided printing as the default option, or possibly moving the printer in your own office out of reach. This necessitates getting up and walking a few paces to collect the output, and can discourage un-necessary printing. Some organisations have moved printing to centralised points, which is suitable for non-secure and non-confidential outputs, or have introduced a code system so that the printing will only be undertaken when the relevant person keys in their code to the printer.
You should remove screensavers, and replace them with still photographs on the desk. The automatic software to put systems into a sleep mode or to switch them off can be utilised, similarly with lights. Figures produced by the Carbon Trust indicated that “lighting an office overnight wastes enough energy to heat water for one thousand cups of tea” and that “a typical window left open overnight in winter will waste enough energy to drive a small car for more than 35 miles.”
Incorporating staff
Staff can be asked to contribute ideas for reduction of carbon footprint, saving fuel and costs. Visual representations of the amount of usage per month, of paper or printer cartridges could be displayed. Hopefully these displays will become smaller as the months progress and the usage of paper and cartridges are gradually reduced. Other waste parts can be used to create major statues like the WEEE man in Cornwall (www.weeeman.org).
Recycling bins, including ones for used batteries can be provided. Many supermarkets and shops that sell sufficient number of batteries are now required to provide collection points for dead batteries, so possibly arrangements could be made for those collected in an organisation to be taken to one of these collection points, subject to the supermarket’s agreement. Some of these approaches to greenness can also be utilised at home.
Consider arranging the start times of meetings or shifts to encourage car sharing or allowing alternative travel arrangements, such as the reduced train costs for off-peak travel. The use of videoconferencing, possibly using free tool Skype, as an alternative to travelling to meetings, and also telephone conferencing could be used with shared access to information via the Internet, again removing the travelling time as well as the travelling costs.
Working from home
Teleworking on a five days a week basis has now been established by many organisations, therefore reducing the need for buildings and the carbon footprint generated by those buildings. Security issues, such as those related to technology and the back-up of equipment or the local technical support for the teleworkers in addition to ensuring ergonomic facilities for them at their homes, need to be considered. The use of some form of tele-cottage or shared resources are arranged by some organisations. Many teleworkers have been very pleased with the reduction in time of travel and of cost.
Teleworking could be encouraged on say one or two days per week, as this would still allow face-to-face communication and meetings. The training and security issues can be considered and possibly minimised by this partial teleworking solution.
Today it is necessary to build teleworking into a good business continuity plan. Encouraging teleworking, even on one day per month, ensures that the systems work appropriately as well as reducing the lighting, heating or air-conditioning for that day. This aspect of the business continuity plan is essential when considering the 2012 Olympic Games, when transport might become very difficult, not only in the London area, but throughout the UK.
Legislation
The new Energy Bill and the pressures to reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by 2020 and by 2050, together with the introduction of carbon trading has brought green IT to the top of many managers concerns.
Many organisations have outsourced areas of IT services to other countries, so apparently reducing their carbon footprint. But this might not be a case in the future, when the carbon footprint of the outsourcers might be added to carbon footprint of the client organisation. This could certainly raise some key questions prior to new or renewed contracts with outsourcers on exactly how green their organisation is.
Although many of these actions seem to make very little difference to the wider problem of reducing an organisation’s carbon footprint, I personally think the expression that “every little helps” is worth taking on board.
About the Author
Margaret is Professor of Software Quality at Southampton Solent University. She is active on the BCS Ethics Forum’s Carbon Footprint Working Group as well as with the ISEB GreenIT Qualifications. She is on various committees, including BCS Quality SG, BCS e-Learning SG, BCSWomen and of BCS Council and very active in both the Branches and SG communities of the BCS. Margaret is FBCS, CITP, CSci, CEng, FHEA and also Honorary FBCS.
This is the second article Margaret has written for Government Technology. The first one, filled with more tips on greening your workplace, can be accessed on the GT website www.governmenttechnology.co.uk
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