Recommendation for adopting Green IT in our Company From: Senior manager of IT Department Subject: Adopting Greener IT in our various department of the company.

Green IT or green computing, what does it mean? Probably we know by now, that green stands for everything that is environmentally friendly. Green computing is the environmentally responsible and eco-friendly use of computers and their resources. It also includes the study of designing, manufacturing/engineering, using and disposing of computing devices in a way that reduces their impact on environmental. Its origin back to 1992, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched Energy Star,a voluntary labeling program which is designed to promote and recognize energy-efficiency in monitors, climate control equipment, and other technologies. This resulted in the widespread adoption of sleep mode among consumer electronics. The term "green computing" was probably coined shortly after the Energy Star program began. I will slightly demonstrate its impact on our budget and environment, Think of our firm, for example we have 4 servers operates in an air conditioned room, forty desktop stations, almost half of that number printers, besides we use only genuine cartridges, only hard copy documents circulates among the various departments as a method of communication, we print all the emails and attached them to the various document for various purposes. Now let us see what does this cost us and what does it has an impact on Mother Nature, using small mathematical calculation; the cost of running, maintenance, and air conditioning the Servers is around $13600 in physical hardware and $2644 in energy saving plus emission of 20 tons of greenhouse gases [1]. The printers cost $13000 yearly [2] .The old CRT monitors that we still using cost $6000 yearly (30 monitorX$200). In the other hand, by keeping the usage of IT this way, we are a part of the following equation which destruction our planet Earth; computer generate 2% of CO2emissions from human activity, as far as all the aircraft fleet [3], Manufacturing one desktop and one monitor requires: 530 pounds of fossil fuel, 58 pounds of chemicals, and 1.5 tons of water. (UN, ResourceSaver),most servers and workstations are used between 8-15% when they are lit, each one dollar spent in hardware leads 750 kg of CO2 emissions, the energy cost may represent up to 30% of the total IT budget of a company and 35-50 % of the electricity consumed by a data center is used to cool the servers.[4]

Now what we can do to address this issue? In fact many things can be done, we can start by promoting green computing concepts and habits which can be introduced into our daily routines such as; put the computer to hibernate after 5 min of not using it plus switching the monitor off can save up to 75 % of the power usage [5]. Activate the power management features for controlling energy consumption, turn off the computer at the end of each day, refill printer cartridges rather than buying new ones beside we can use one or two central printers, use email as the official way of communication among the various departments, don’t print the emails, they are anyway saved in the server’s hard disk, in fact The average office drone uses up 10,000 sheets of paper—about a whole tree's worth of wood pulp—per year. (GreenIQ ).Instead of buying new computers , try to refurbish or rebuild the existing ones, we may consider negotiating good deal with company which offer services like providing PaaS (Platform as a Service), which operated on a monthly usage basis. Even we can virtualize our servers instead of installing and maintaining costly IT infrastructure. Finally if we sign with the WWF's Climate Savers Computing Initiative could reduce CO2 pollution by 10 million tons annually by 2010. (ClimateSaversComputing.org). In fact many IT manufacturers and vendors are continuously investing in designing energy efficient computing devices, reducing the use of dangerous materials, and encouraging the recyclability of digital devices and printing paper. Green computing or green IT aims to attain economic viability and improve the way computing devices are used. Green IT practices include working towards environmentally sustainable computing. Green computing has drawn people from all over the world into becoming one global community. Businesses have become more dynamic, while friends and families from all over the world are kept even closer. Almost everyone has benefited from all that can be shared and transmitted in real time with less environmental aggravation, which is contrary to what was previously feared. During the 1997 International Energy Efficiency Appliance Conference, Dr. Alan Meier from, Lawrence National Berkeley Laboratory, announced that standby energy used by computers accounts for 1 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Super computers, data centers, and servers have greater impacts on the environment compared to the desktop PCs. Yet they are able to operate in our midst by harnessing green technologies and make possible better business and working conditions like telecommuting, and paperless meetings. All of which are geared toward maintaining and sustaining the advantages of green computing for a better environment on a global scale.

Some companies are in very advanced stages towards addressing this issue, yet still we can start applying these practices not to follow them but at least be a part of this. Let see what some of the benchmarking companies already have established, like HP Labs Data Center in a Dairy Farm – Rural areas are where animal manure power is abundant and HP Labs Design is utilizing a "Farm Waste Data Center Ecosystem" [6]. This refers to a farm of 10,000 cows that provide methane gas to power up a typical modern data center and the dairy farm. Google’s Sustainable Operations – Google, which thrives on data centers is well-known for being at the forefront of advocating the benefits of green computing. The company's data centers rely on Google-designed edifices that utilize only half the energy used by a typical data center. Accordingly, the energy used per Google search consumes only about 0.0003 kWh with roughly about 0.2g of CO2 emission. Google is out to prove that sustainability in energy use is possible and is quite active in encouraging other people companies to do the same.

[1] If we virtualize the 4 servers,5 tons each, source http://www.vmware.com/solutions/green/calculator.html
[2] Cost of the printer’s parts $100, toner 3X$130, paper 2X12monthX$6=144, total each (100+390+144) =634X20=12680
[3] Green hub, 2009 data
[4] (Gartner Group source).
[5] PC magazine
[6] you may follow this link for further detail from HP managers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ApXI9v461g