Your green PC strategy
If you would like to reduce your company’s carbon footprint then personal computers may be a great place to start. There are clear-cut and proven strategies, a lot of resources available to help and in most cases your initiative should be cost-negative.
This list of strategies published by the UK Government CTO Council is a great resource. Here are the reduction strategies they suggest for personal computers:
- Remove active screensavers. A monitor left running with an active screen saver uses the same amount of energy as when the screen is in full use.
- Switch monitors to low power mode after 5 minutes of inactivity. This prevents a longer period of wasted power.
- Shut down PCs after office hours. For the regular working day of 8 hours the overnight period lasts 16 hours, so a running computer could waste twice as much energy overnight.
- Enable active power management on desktops (switch to low power mode after a period of inactivity). Having active power management will match the consumption of energy more closely with use, reducing wasted energy.
- Aim to reduce and re-use equipment that is no longer required but is still serviceable. Some sources claim that the majority of energy in the life of a PC or laptop is consumed in its manufacture, delivery and disposal. By ensuring equipment which is still servicable is re-used you are therefore saving energy which would have been required to dispose of the old product and manufacture a new one.
- If re-use is not possible ensure recycle and disposal is green. PCs and Laptops contain various components, some of which can be recycled, some which can’t and some which may be toxic. By recycling where possible, and using green disposal methods if not, then the end-of-life environmental impact can be minimized.
- Specify low-power consumption CPUs and high-efficiency Power Supply Units (80% conversion or better) . Do not over specify system requirements. The richer the functionality on a device the more mains power is required. Power supply units convert mains AC power to the DC power needed by computers. More efficient units minimise the loss of energy from this conversion in the form of heat.
We have a few other points you might want to consider in your green PC strategy. Firstly, consider providing laptops as an alternative to desktop personal computers. Laptops use less power and have better power management then most desktop computers. If this is cost prohibitive then consider subsidizing the purchase of laptops. In Australia laptop computers can be salary sacrificed and aren’t subject to fringe-benefits tax.
If an employee has a laptop they may be able to avoid the need for a second computer for home. An employee with a laptop may be able to work from home and avoid the carbon impact of commuting to work every day.
Providing a laptop will be perceived as a benefit by most employees and so can be linked as an incentive to other carbon reduction strategies, for example related to business travel.
Secondly, make sure you are able to measure the emissions and energy use associated with personal computers in your organization before you start. By baselining your emissions and energy use you can track progress and demonstrate the benefits of your actions. As well as making good business sense there may be regulatory reasons for proceeding in this way.
Lastly, you may note that many of these strategies can be implemented centrally without action from your employees. For example computers can be shutdown remotely and automatically after hours.
However, we strongly recommend any carbon reduction strategy has communication and change management its heart. This will help ensure that employees will appreciate the action you are taking: they will forgive any personal impacts (for example the need to contact the IT help desk when they are working after hours); it will encourage them to take these actions back with them to the home; and, it will help engender support for future initiatives.
Implementing these strategies will reduce your organization’s carbon footprint but should also — if properly managed — improve employee engagement and reduce costs. Please contact Greensense if you would like help implementing your green PC strategy.
Tags: information technology, IT, PC, personal computers, reduction strategy
