Green Experts Pour Cold Water On Sweating IT Assets
The Green Grid’s John Tuccillo and Zhal Limbuwala from the British Computer Society argue that consuming less IT and upgrading less frequently isn’t necessarily the most sustainable approach
Q: Is sweating assets really an issue that the IT industry wants to engage with? It makes sense for vendors to discuss energy efficiency as it enables them to sell new energy efficient kit. But the concept of selling less equipment that customers keep for longer seems a harder sell.
BCS: I am not a vendor but I don’t think there is really going to be an impact. Our drive as a society to continue to improve and drive up productivity will only continue to drive every increasing need and reliance from IT as a whole. There is no magic bullet IT device that a manufacturer can produce which says “Look you can use this for the next 30 years and all is good”. I don’t seriously think vendors look at that as a risk to them selling more product.
GG: IT has increased the productivity of almost every vertical industry everywhere. There are so many examples we can get into where the use of IT has substantially improved the percent of carbon per unit of productivity. There is a study by the ACEEE released in February by Skip Laitner, in which he quantifies how the ongoing investment in IT has reduced the carbon footprint – if you will – of vertical deliverables across multiple industries by a factor of ten. So if you look at the efficiencies that are gained by the use of IT in terms of the overall carbon implications of a delivered good, it has contributed substantially to the GDP of every nation.
Q: Green Grid is a consortium representing the interests of IT companies – as well as end-users – but how do you avoid accusations of simply being a group of vendors looking to use their collective power to lobby against environmental legislation that would be harmful to them?
GG: No that is really not who the Green Grid is. Today roughly 24 percent of the members are from the end-user community. The actual technology providers’ percentage of the Green Grid is down to between 18 and 22 percent of the overall mix of members. So Green Grid is not a technology vendor organisation.
Q: Would it add more legitimacy to the “green” aspects of the Green Grid if, as well as IT vendors and multinationals, you had some environmental groups as members, such as the likes of Greenpeace or Friends of The Earth?
GG: Well, anybody can join the Green Grid – as long as they sign-up to the by-laws and the membership agreement. We also have a liaison committee which has been established to actively engage with other parties. Can the Green Grid be compared to an environmental group itself? No – not really. Green Grid was established to improve energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems
Q: Do you think there is a good understanding of the impact of IT on the environment and its ability to be a force for good in some instances amongst environmental campaigners ?
GG: No, I don’t think there is. I think that is a terrific opportunity – an opportunity for shared learning on how the increase in productivity that is available to multiple industries through IT is something that is not well understood. I think people look at IT almost in terms of an “IT Tax” if you will as opposed to the benefit that is afforded by the IT refresh.
Q: How much of this relationship with the BCS is about reaching out to Europe as the organisation might be seen as US-centric at the moment?
GG: The organisation started originally in the US but we established Green Grid Emea almost two years ago now which has members in Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Italy, France, Spain – we have a pretty broad membership coming from Europe. We have a process and methodology that allows them to create regional-specific content, but the ability for that information to be used globally too. Also, about 18 months ago, the Green Grid extended into Japan with Green Grid Japan. Take a look at the Green Grid Data Centre Design Guide – another collaboration point with BCS – which enables folks to be able to take into account what is the best mix of resources to deliver an energy-efficient data centre and what are the regional implications of that kind of a design.
Q: The BCS has developed some green data centre qualifications for IT professionals – are there any plans for Green Grid to use its global reach to develop similar green training and certifications which would be internationally recognised?
GG: Not that I could see would be on the road-map now, but we do have the green grid academy. The academy is a live, online training opportunity on the Green Grid website. You have the opportunity to be able to enter a virtual reality data centre, if you will. You are greeted by an avatar – a very scary looking cartoon animation – which hits you with a challenge that is common to the industry today. For example “We are out of capacity” or “We have no idea how much energy we are consuming in the data centre”. We are planning to create another 18 modules for the academy, including one that might train folks on the BCS data centre simulator tool for example. But could that round-out to a global certification methodology? I rather fail to see how the content comes together. That would be nirvana for the industry but I think there is awful lot of work we need to do as an in here.
