Green IT

According to a recent survey in the USA by CDW Green IT is very firmly on the agenda for small to medium sized businesses.

The survey polled over 1000 IT decision makers and results showed that nearly a third (31%) of the small businesses questioned were planning on implementing Green IT initiatives in the next two years.

The major factors that were holding businesses back from including Green IT in their plans were lack of expertise (22%) and complexity of maintenance (21%).

Until now Green IT has been thought of as only really applying to the big guys, the Google’s, BP’s etc of the world.  While it is true that the world does tend to look to the big companies to lead the way this doesn’t mean that they are the ones with sole responsibility.

Equally, while it is the big guys who stand to make the biggest savings through reducing energy consumption it doesn’t mean that there aren’t real savings to be made by the smaller company.  How many small business owners are really not interested in cutting their bills without having to change the way they work?

Green IT projects come in a variety of different formats but the ones generally considered most applicable to the small to medium sized business are PC power management, server virtualisation and making use of cloud computing.

There are also technologies that can be used to reduce the environmental impact of operations such as online virtual meeting places, negating the need to all travel to one place for a monthly meeting , or advanced logistics management systems optimising vehicle routes and thus reducing emissions and saving money.

At Vivid IT Solutions, Green IT is the way we do things, it’s not a product we sell and we work closely with a company to make sure that they can get the most out of their IT while minimising outlay and maximising savings.

Many people don’t think of the money they spend on the electricity that powers their computers but it can be a significant amount.  We all know that standby on our TVs uses almost as much power as being switched on and few of us leave all the lights on at night, so why not apply the same thinking to computers – at home and at work.

Here are 5 quick wins to reduce your electricity bills (as with X Factor – in no particular order!)

• Disable your screen saver. Screen savers do not save power, if your screen saver is active your monitor is running at full power.
• Use the in-built power management functions (in Windows this is found in the control panel, in Mac OSX in System Preferences).  Set your monitor to switch off after 10 minutes of activity and suspend your computer after 15 minutes.  These days it really doesn’t take long to “wake up” a computer so you’re not hanging around for ages twiddling your thumbs.
• Switch off at night. With the exception of servers and routers there’s not much that needs to be on 24/7, so like your lights – switch them off at the wall, printers included.
• Unplug or disable external devices when not in use.  They mostly draw some kind of power when plugged in so unplug that camera or external hard drive if you’re not using it.  If you’re using a network cable, switch off the wireless network adaptor.  If you don’t need Bluetooth connected to anything, switch it off!
• If you still have a CRT monitor (old television style) replace with a flat screen TFT.  A TFT typically uses about a third of the power.

You’ll probably have noticed a common theme here – if you’re not using it switch it off!  Technology isn’t always the answer, sometimes we need to take action ourselves.  Saying that though, all the major manufacturers are taking energy efficiency seriously and a PC bought today is a lot “Greener” than the equivalent a couple of years ago – as with everything though some are better than others.

Just by making a few changes in your habits you can realise some very real cost savings – and you’re not really giving anything up.

Please feel free to comment or to contact us if you want to know more.