Green IT Toolkit

Story: FCO admits overnight energy waste

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What happend to the 3,500 old machines?

Interesting logic here from the government that the way to improve its sustainable approach to IT and the environment in generally is to buy in lots of shiny new boxes - aahhh the lovely shiny things!

While new machines are generally more efficient, they are never efficient enough to off-set the impact of upgrading as the existing kit has paid off much of its carbon debt - while the new machines come bundled with a fat new C02 footprint.

According to the Global Action Plan Report (An Inefficient Truth http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/upload/resource/Full-report.pdf): "A recent study at the United Nations University
inTokyo(51) found that most electrical products consume
around 95 percent of lifecycle fossil fuels when in use; however,
75% of PC fossil fuel consumption has already happened
before the computer is even switched on for the first time.
Furthermore, the study found that the manufacture of one
PC requires about 1.7 tonnes of raw materials and water,
and consumes over ten times the computer’s weight in
fossil fuels."

Obviously equipment has to be upgraded eventually for productivity reasons, and because it is basically clapped out, but it is wrong to assume that buying in newer, supposedly leaner IT is actually the most sustainable approach.

Instead the government should be using its buying power to force vendors to come up with longer lasting, cleaner products that don't need to be refreshed every three years - or when Microsoft decides we need a new OS.

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