The Economics of Green Computing

The primary motivation for organizations to pursue Green Computing is financial. However, the environmental consequences of Green Computing are a positive byproduct of the economic benefits. In today’s economic climate, Green Computing will undoubtedly help you control your business costs.

How to Green Compute:

• Manage Your Power.
• Turn it off. Computers are designed so that frequent shut downs will not significantly affect them. In fact, turning off a system saves energy and may prolong its life. Always turn off your monitor at night, and when going to meeting or at lunch. Even if you have power management enabled for your monitor, leaving on a monitor uses significant electricity.
• Purchase Energy Star rated computers, laptops, and printers. Energy Star models are 25% more efficient than conventional models. In addition, Energy Star equipment saves money on air-conditioning and maintenance, thanks to efficient designs and cooler running temperatures.
• Enable power management. General Electric expects to save $2.3 million per year simply by turning on the power management features such as standby and hibernate in Windows.
• Skip the screen saver. Active, moving screen savers don’t save energy, and today’s monitors don’t need them.
• Ask Your IT Guys to Virtualize Your Servers.
• The average energy expense of an office server is $50 to $100 per month, with typical utilization of 10%. With Virtualization, system administrators combine several physical systems into virtual machines on one single, powerful system. Syvantis utilizes server virtualization in its data center. With virtualization, multiple small businesses share a single physical server. This means that Syvantis Office Anywhere customers save money on the initial purchase of server hardware, ongoing power, and server disposition.
• Encourage Your Employees to Telecommute.
• One of the most powerful green computing initiatives is telecommuting. Telecommuting offers increased worker satisfaction, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and lower overhead costs for office space, lighting, heating, etc. The savings are significant; the US white collar workforce burns 583 million gallons of gasoline commuting to work each week. If, on average, one employee were to work from home one day a week, 1,680 pounds of CO2 emissions would be saved each year, according to Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focusing on promoting and expanding telework options.
• An important initiative is currently underway to encourage a Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE), which allows employees to work from wherever they are most efficient and effective. The ROWE concept was developed by two managers from Best Buy Corp., and has the potential to fundamentally change the way that business is done in the US and around the world. ROWE encourages employees to use common sense about where they get work done – whether from home, a coffee shop, or the library. Implementation of ROWE across the US would massively reduce gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. See www.culturerx.com for more information on this exciting new concept.
• Utilize Collaboration Tools, Telepresence, and Web conferencing.
• Web conferencing and collaboration tools such as SharePoint enable companies to minimize the expense and negative environmental impact of travel. They make it easy to conduct sales presentations, collaborate on projects, and offer interactive training with participants anywhere in the world.
• Manage your IT Remotely.
• Today’s management tools allow systems engineers to support PCs and servers right from their desks. Syvantis utilizes remote management tools to monitor client networks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. User support is provided remotely whenever possible, minimizing travel and reducing the cost of service calls.
• Manage Your Printing Environment.
• A printer on every desk is much more costly that most businesses realize. HP has seen customers save 40% or more on energy costs by consolidating and standardizing on fewer, more power-efficient devices.
• Schedule sleep and wake-up modes to conserve power. The US Department of Energy states that companies can save up to 66% of printing costs just by turning the devices off on nights and weekends.
• Set your printers for automatic duplexing. According to an HP test, switching to duplex printing can reduce paper waste by 25%.
• Eliminate costly reprints by using PINs. According to Gartner, as many as one in ten documents are sent to the printer and uncollected or sent again before collection, enterprises could reduce ad hoc print costs by up to 10% by implementing PIN authentication.
• Convert paper-based processes into digital formats.
• To calculate your printer energy consumption and associated carbon output, visit the HP Carbon Footprint Calculator.
• Utilize Terminal Servers.
• Terminal servers are powerful servers that do all of the computing for many users. Since the heavy lifting is done by the server, the user’s computers don’t need much processing power. Terminal servers can be combined with thin clients, which use up to 1/8 the amount of energy of a normal workstation.
• Consider Buying LED Displays.
• In addition to being mercury-free and highly recyclable, LED displays deliver significant energy savings compared to cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) technology. For example, 15-inch LED displays consume an average of 43 percent less power at maximum brightness, resulting in extraordinary cost and carbon savings.
• Recycle Your Old Equipment.
• Recycling computing equipment can keep harmful materials such as lead, mercury, and hexavelent chromium out of landfills. Unfortunately, often recycled computers are shipped to developing countries where environmental standards are below those of the US and Europe. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition estimates that 80% of the post-consumer waste collected for recycling is shipped abroad to countries such as China, India, and Pakistan.
• Utilize the HP Trade-In program to trade in your old equipment and get a credit against your new equipment purchases. You can also choose to donate used equipment to worthwhile nonprofit organizations through the HP Trade-In website.