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Whitehall departments reveal IT carbon emissions

Departments of Health, Work and Pensions, Business, Justice and Foreign Office leading the way in implementing government green IT strategy

Whitehall wants its IT systems to be zero carbon by 2012

Several of the largest government departments have released figures on the carbon emissions produced from their use of IT.

The details have been released this week in response to a series of parliamentary questions from Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Willott.

The Cabinet Office last year announced a green IT strategy that it is being implemented across all Whitehall IT departments, with the aim of making government IT carbon neutral by 2012 - technology is currently responsible for up to 20 per cent of carbon emissions generated by government offices.

As part of that strategy, departments are starting to take stock of their carbon footprint and introduce measures to reduce emissions, and some have revealed details in response to Willott's questions, as follows:

The Cabinet Office

The Cabinet Office used 929,000kWh of electricity at a cost of £61,000 for its IT services in the past year. This equates to 401 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

The Cabinet Office has already reduced printer numbers, increased average server capacity to more than 50 per cent, initiated automatic shutdown for PCs, earmarked old equipment for re-use and started to replace existing servers with storage area networking devices that implement storage virtualisation.

It is also leading on Public Sector Flex, a framework offering a shared IT service open to all public bodies using thin client desktops and datacentres more efficient than those used in most Whitehall IT departments. So far 10 Downing St, the Department of Innovation Universities and Skills (Dius), the Office of National Statistics (OCS) and the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass) have signed up.

Department of Health

The Department of Health (DoH) uses 3.8 million kWh of electricity a year for IT at a cost of nearly £400,000 emitting some 2,676 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

DoH said it only buys equipment that meets Energy Star performance criteria and has put in place a managed print service to reduce the number of printers and to increase the efficiency of the service.

The department is currently looking at server efficiency and a report will be delivered next month.

Department of Work and Pensions

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) uses more than 20 million KWh of electricity a year for IT at a cost of £2.7m, emitting some 10,800 tonnes of CO2.

The DWP said it has made "great inroads" in reducing its carbon footprint through active management of IT services, which are largely outsourced, but did not reveal further details, though it said a key element of re-competing IT contracts announced last year would be to contractually commit the IT providers to reduce the carbon footprint of the services they deliver.

The DWP has also instigated a scheme replacing existing printers with double-sided printing devices and standardise print models.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) recently commissioned IBM to identify its IT-related carbon footprint, the results of which will be announced in June.

The FCO is implementing a three-year plan to put in place measures identified in the Cabinet Office Greening Government IT report, but for security reasons staff are instructed to leave 12,000 or so PCs switched on when not in use.

Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said it was difficult to evaluate its IT carbon footprint as it shares buildings with other organisations, while at locations which house solely MoJ operations IT devices are not metered separately from other electrical equipment. Servers are outsourced to third-party suppliers. But the ministry is currently attempting to gain a better picture of its IT carbon footprint.

MoJ said it was working with suppliers to improve energy efficiency, centralising data processing, converging networks, and investing in videoconferencing and teleconferencing technology to reduce emissions. It said an imminent upgrade of desktop PCs will allow better power management and more hotdesking.

Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

The Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) was unable to provide an accurate estimate its IT footprint but said it was reducing the number of PCs within the department on a ratio of eight PCs for every 10 staff.

Berr is also reducing the number of printers by 800, cutting the number of Exchange email servers from 20 to eight, and introducing improved power saving settings and automatic shutdown on all PCs.

Other departments have yet to provide updates on their progress.

Whitehall departments reveal IT carbon emissions

Departments of Health, Work and Pensions, Business, Justice and Foreign Office leading the way in implementing government green IT strategy

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