Computing rivals aviation for CO2 emissions - Gartner

 

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Posted on 27 Apr 2007 at 10:35

The global information and communications technology (ICT) industry generates as much CO₂ as aviation, according to new research by Gartner.

Gartner estimates that ICT accounts for around two per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. The research firm believes that despite the overall environmental value of IT, this level is unsustainable.

ITC CO₂ emissions combine output from the daily use of PCs, servers, cooling, fixed and mobile telephony, local area network (LAN), office telecommunications and printers. Plus, it includes amounts generated in the design, manufacture and distribution of large-volume devices, notably PCs and mobile phones. The Gartner figure also includes all commercial and governmental IT and telecommunications infrastructure worldwide, but not consumer electronics (other than cell phones and PCs).

'During the next five years, increasing financial, environmental, legislative and risk-related pressures will force IT organisations to get "greener"; that is to say, more environmentally sustainable,' said Simon Mingay, research vice president, Gartner. 'When enough buyers start demanding it and we get beyond the superficial, being "less bad" will no longer be anywhere near acceptable enough. That point will be reached in 2007 and 2008 for some geographies, particularly Europe, with other countries and regions taking longer.'

Gartner notes that until now few organisations were concerned about power costs and CO₂ emissions. But, it says, intense media coverage has contributed to making 'environmentalists' out of millions of people worldwide, which is beginning to affect consumer and business buying decisions.

'The issue is no longer about whether the enterprise needs to care, and more about the risk associated with doing nothing,' it warns businesses.

The ICT industry needs to gain a better understanding of the full life cycle of ICT products and services and to innovate to reduce environmental impact, Gartner argues, adding that this does not currently happen because of the lack of a commercial or legislative pressure. This will change, said Mingay.

'Vendors are being forced to gain a better understanding of the life cycle due to new legislation and directives in countries and regions worldwide, as well as an increasing interest from clients in life cycle assessment,' he said. 'The areas for innovation to reduce CO₂ emissions are in the reduction of the materiality, energy consumption and use of hazardous substances throughout the life cycle, in addition to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of recycling and the use of recycled materials.'

Gartner also recommends that leading ITC companies should develop initiatives that use their own technologies to cut emissions. These could include travel-substitution applications and compliance information tools to manage corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental polices.

It says that this could lead to 50 per cent of IT organisations declaring an environmental imperative by 2010,and more than one third of IT organisations having one or more environmental criteria in their top six buying criteria.

In the meantime, there are several measures that an IT department can implement immediately to monitor and reduce CO₂ emissions, including: measuring power consumption; consuming fewer servers and printers by increasing use of virtualisation; stopping over-provisioning; improving capacity planning; improving the efficiency of cooling; turning power management on, using a low power state, or turning equipment off after hours; extending the life of assets by reusing within the enterprise and externally; ensuring and validating the correct disposition of all electronic equipment; and analysing all waste.