18 Jul 14

Home Office Partners with Greenstone to Measure ICT Energy and Carbon Footprint

300px-home_officeThe Home Office has become the latest UK Government department to measure its ICT related energy and GHG emissions using Greenstone’s Enterprise system.  The department produced its annual ICT footprint as part of the Cabinet Office Greening Government ICT programme. 

In 2011, the UK Government launched its ‘Greening ICT Strategy’ with a vision to create “a cost-effective and energy-efficient ICT estate…..with reduced environmental impacts to enable new and sustainable ways of working for the public sector.” As a result, 15 central government departments are required to submit an annual report outlining their progress on mandated commitments and actions on greening their ICT estate to the Cabinet Office.

Auditing the electricity and GHG emissions footprint of an ICT estate is a challenge for any organisation and can be particularly difficult for a government department the size, scale and diversity of the Home Office, which is responsible for matters relating to immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime, counter-terrorism and policing.  The department carries out its operations at over 300 locations in the UK and abroad.

Challenges aside, there are significant benefits to measuring your ICT footprint.  ICT is an energy and emissions hotspot that is often forgotten.  In an office-based organisation, ICT is typically responsible for 15% of total energy consumption, a figure that rises for different types of business.

Greenstone’s ICT footprinting module calculates the electricity consumption, GHG emissions and associated costs of ICT usage across multiple equipment types.  Greenstone calculates the electricity consumption for specific brands and model types of equipment based on the power rating and assumed time in use, including sleep and standby time if required.  This approach increases the accuracy of the footprint and enables organisations to use this information to drive policies and initiatives around the sustainable use of ICT equipment.

Another key advantage of Greenstone Enterprise is the ability to analyse data by equipment type, site and division.  With all data stored online, flexibility in analysis across an organisation of any size is a major benefit of using an online tool, enabling an organisation to quickly and easily conduct an in-depth analysis of their ICT usage.

For more information about ICT footprinting talk to us.  

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