(a draft undergoing development . . .)
INTRODUCTION
The story of IT’s impact on the environment is primarily one of power consumption. More specifically, the amount of electricity consumed by the hardware and the greenhouse gases (GHGs) released when that power is generated.
In Australia – often referred to as the worst GHG polluter, per capita, in the world - around 80% of its electricity is generated by burning coal, releasing as much at 1.31kg of GHGs to generate a single kilowatt hour (kWh). 1kWh is enough to power a typical IT server for around 4 hours.
In 2007, Gartner estimated that IT accounted for around 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, a figure equivalent to the emissions of aviation. This, it believed, was unsustainable. A report and policy released later that year by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) quoted Australian IT as responsible for 1.52% of the total national emissions.
The proposals to address climate change are many and varied. But the most simple and effective means available to us all is to reduce the amount of energy we waste and increase the efficiency of how we use it. This applies equally to IT.
IT’s use of electricity isn’t the whole story of its impact on the environment, others are outlined in the following strategies.
The basic mantra underpinning sustainability is:
- Reduce– use less of the product in question
- G0 Green – what you must use, buy the most environmentally friendly product you can
- Recyle – find ways to extend the life of the product and dispose of it with care.
IT OPERATIONS
1. Conduct an energy audit
Back to basics, measure what you seek to manage.
IT power is consumed in two areas, the data centre (servers & IT infrastructure) and out in the office (PCs, printers, office equipment).
Electricity meters may be dedicated to specific IT installations or facilities, such as data centres. Is so, a basic audit can be conducted by reviewing electricity bills from the past year. Where this is not possible (usually the case for PCs and office equipment), then you can measure the power consumed by a typical example of each device and project the total over the entire office. Measurement is a simple matter of plugging in and reading a meter.
Once you have your data, you can calculate consumption, cost and GHG emissions. This will form the baseline against which you can measure your progress. You can then asses your position and set targets on your chosen metrics according to your sustainability strategy or policies.
2. Reduce your inventory
Reducing the amount of equipment you operate is a fundamental and powerful step which delivers numerous benefits, including the reduction of:
- power consumption
- capital and operating costs
- maintenance contracts and costs
- administration and operating effort
- complexity
- space requirement
- heat generation
- manufacturing based consumption
- e-Waste
The remaining steps outline how this can be achieved.
3. Consolidate and centralise
Host as many features, functions, services and software on the minimum amount of equipment and share that equipment across as many locations and users as possible. This can be applied across the IT estate.
Servers typical operate at less than 15% of their capacity and often at around 5%. 95% of the capacity and power consumption is waste. As the power of processors continues to double every two years, the only feasible method of utilizing that power is through virtualisation. This allows multiple ‘virtual servers’ to run in software, hosted on one piece of hardware. Once considered cutting edge, it is now an essential IT strategy.
Virtualisation can be applied elsewhere in IT, including storage, networking (LAN and WAN), applications and thin client PCs. It delivers many other benefits, including the facilitation of business continuity, instant server provision and load balancing.
When applied to WAN links (networks between offices), then resource centralisation is facilitated by presenting virtual servers and services to remote offices from a central location.
Other examples of consolidation include using multi function copiers which additionally scan, print and fax. Or, simply limit staff to a desktop or a laptop computer, but not to have both.
Another approach to consolidation is physical, the migration from larger form factor servers onto smaller form factors – including onto blade servers. These allow higher densities of computing power to be accommodated in limited space. Whilst effective, they can have the effect of overloading a data centre with heat, or creating hot spots.
4. Curb Power Consumption in the Data Centre
A data centre (DC) consists of IT equipment (servers, storage and networking) and the building facilities infrastructure required to support them (primary and backup power supplies, cooling, lighting and warning systems for fire, flood and security).
The DC is the single facility responsible for the most power consumption and waste in IT and perhaps across the commercial office. It is estimated that around 97% of the power input into an average DC is consumed in just keeping the equipment running. In other words, only 3% is converted into usable computing power.
Since 2006, the number of stories and reports on DC related power issues has grown dramatically. One theme revolves around power supply shortages and range from companies who can no longer install a single additional server in half empty DCs, bans on the establishment of new DCs in business districts of London, to electricity utilities who have resorted to offering cash to companies who install energy efficient servers. Clearly it is time to curb power consumption in the data centre.
At the heart of this issue are heat, efficiency and capacity. The data centre is an enclosed and secured room. Everything in the data centre produces heat. The heat must be removed to prevent equipment overheat and failure. Removing heat consumes electricity.
Because of design and build issues, much of the equipment operates inefficiently. Thus it consumes and wastes more electricity than necessary and thus generates greater heat.
IT departments are required to run reliable systems which rarely (if ever) fail. To help achieve this, IT folks build in extra capacity and redundancy (over provisioning) when they build new systems. Larger equipment creates more electricity consumption and more heat and it operates at even lower efficiency when it is running well below its optimum level of utilisation.
Initial steps in curbing DC power consumption can be as simple as practicing consolidation and centralisation. Add to this effective policies which limit IT’s tendency to over provision.
Once that is achieved, the next steps are often more difficult. These are around increasing the efficiency of the DC support infrastructure, mainly the cooling systems (CRAC) and the uninterruptable (battery) powers supply (UPS). These two systems may consume 50% of the power input into the DC. Reducing the power demand from the servers may actually increase the power consumed (relative and absolute) by these systems. Retrofitting a DC is possible, but may be difficult and expensive. Cooling technology selection and design in particular is best left to experts in these days of high density data centres. A solution may only be possible to implement during an office or DC move/rebuild.
5. Enable Power Management Features
Most office equipment (including PCs) has facilities to reduce the amount of power they consume after given periods of inactivity or at certain hours. These low power modes, often referred to as sleep, standby or hibernation were first seen on laptops to enhance the life of the battery. Enabling power management can reduce a PC’s power consumption by 60% - quoted as US$25-75 annual saving. Multiplied by the number of PCs you operate, this can be a significant sum.
The most recognised efficiency scheme in this area is Energy Star is a power saving standard introduced by the USA. While it included in all PCs hardware (including monitors), until recently the operating system was default set with it turned off. Hence you have to enable it or if it’s already on, then at least check that its settings are appropriate. This applies equally to other office equipment such as printers and copiers.
This is simple to do on a given PC or other device. However, if you manage more than 50 PCs, then it can become an administrative challenge. Fortunately, power management software is available to facilitate the process.
Servers are usually required to run 24 x 365, hence power management, if available on the hardware, is usually not enabled. However, it’s possible to identify some systems in every data centre where certain PCs can be shut down after office hours or for certain weeks in a given month. When combined with server virtualisation and load balancing, this is a viable larger scale power efficiency strategy.
6. Reduce other consumption
Because paper remains the preferred method of receiving, reading and storing information, printer and photocopiers remain an important part of any office. These create significant environmental impacts through paper and ink/toner cartridge consumption.
Paper is (usually) made from trees and for all sorts of reasons many people prefer that they were left standing. Where the source is plantation timber grown specifically for harvesting, the environmental case is at least debatable. But where protected, native, old growth or environmentally significant forests (such as tropical rainforest) are wastefully clear felled and logged for profit and paper production, then this should not be supported. Paper production is also a highly energy and water intensive process and thus has various GHG and other pollution issues.
Using recycled content office paper is an easy way to avoid most of the basic issues related to forestry. It is generally considered less energy and water intensive too, though some parties debate that claim. Buy the highest percentage of recycled content (100% is best) and the highest possible percentage of that should be ‘post consumer’ fibre – which means genuinely used and recycled fibre. Most modern recycled papers are now guaranteed to run reliably through office machinery. Some European office papers such as Evolve and Xerox Supreme are 100% post consumer, recycled content.
Virgin paper (that is, with no recycled content) should be avoided, but where unavoidable, should be sourced from FSC certified or highly reliable brand and sources. In either case, (recycled or virgin) manufacturers claims should not be taken at face value, since there are many examples of missing or misleading information or ‘greenwash’.
IT PRODUCTS
7. Consider the Life Cycle
When contemplating the environmental impact of the products and services we purchase and use, it’s useful to visualise the entire lifecycle:
- Design
- Materials
- Production
- Distribution
- Use
- Disposal
At every stage there are impacts relating to the materials and energy consumed, emissions and waste created. Everything stems from the design. From the point of view of a purchaser/consumer of a product, those processes around items 1-4 are designated ‘upstream’ and item 6 is ‘downstream’.
If we wish to improve the sustainability of our organisation’s existence, we need to look at our impacts both upstream and downstream. We may not directly create the upstream impacts, but by buying the products, we are supporting them.
In the marketplace, there are those manufacturers and service providers who are more or less environmentally conscious. We can best exercise our influence over these upstream and downstream areas with our everyday decisions. Every dollar spent is a vote for that upstream process. Every item disposed of is support for the downstream.
It’s also useful to consider your own company’s products and services in the same way, even if you do not manufacture products. Place yourself in your clients’ shoes and consider what they receive as a product or service from your company.
8. Implement a Sustainable Procurement Policy
Total cost of ownership is a well known concept relating to the financial costs of owning and operating a good (or service) over it’s entire life. It is usually only applied to the step 5. (Use) of that product.
Environmental sustainability requires that we additionally consider step 6 (Disposal). Ecological sustainability, if so defined, could include all steps for a full lifecycle assessment. Of course, the environmental and ecological approaches also require that we look beyond financial aspects to the non financial ‘costs’ involved in that life cycle.
Consider what is important to your IT department, to the strategies outlined above or meets with your organisations environmental policy/culture and form. Consider how they would apply to each of the lifecycle steps and define requirements for the products purchased by your organisation.
Then seek suppliers who most closely match those criteria. It may require that you change suppliers or that you begin to pressure your preferred supplier to meet your customer requirements. Some examples are outlined below:
Design – should use the minimum amount of material possible to achieve the performance needs of the product. Design should include efficiency of use, maximum life and end of life recyclability in mind.
Materials – should be of high recycle/remanufactured content. Use minimal rare, toxic or non renewable resources.
Production – should be manufactured under an ISO 14001 (or similar) environmental management system.
Distribution – should be manufactured/stored/sold as close as possible to the organisation’s premises. Should have minimum packaging materials.
Use – should be highly efficient in use, have a long life and be easy to use.
Disposal – the manufacturer should extend their responsibility towards collection and recycling of the product once its useful life has expired.
9. Manage e-Waste
IT creates e-waste, consisting of broken or unwanted electrical and electronic items. Such is the speed at which technology advances, that a great deal of equipment is consigned to the trash, even though it is still working perfectly. It is possible to reassign or repurpose the equipment, but it’s often considered more trouble than its worth. Charities and community organisations will often set limits on the specifications of the equipment they will accept.
If e-Waste is consigned to landfill, there is loss of rare and valuable materials and pollution of the land for hundreds of years as toxic compounds leach into the soil. Alternatively, where the waste is shipped to developing countries for primitive forms of disassembly, this creates huge issues of land pollution and poisoning of the workers.
e-Waste cannot be avoided, at least not until manufacturers build the equipment with recycled or recyclable parts. At some point, the equipment reaches the end of its usable life. But there are some ways to reduce it or its impact.
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