The 2014 Greening Government: ICT annual report just published shows departments are on track for delivering the commitments to improve the sustainability of government technology set out in the 2011 Greening Government: ICT Strategy.
The overall energy consumption per user of our technology as reported by departments has reduced this year. More departments are on track for achieving the target of Level 3 against the green technology maturity model by 2015.
More opportunities to improve sustainability
Since the Strategy was published, new government approaches to technology offer many more opportunities to improve sustainability: the increasing procurement of cloud-based commodity services via the Digital Marketplace, the use of open source software and agile techniques can all provide improved sustainability.
In addition, the use of cloud services for hosting is more often than not leading to use of shared services that are consolidated and energy efficient while digitising customer services helps reduce paper and overall carbon requirements compared to more traditional delivery models.
Much to do
But there is much to do. We need to learn and share how we measure and improve sustainability in new technology delivery models. Sharing skills, understanding the dynamics of new delivery models and building in sustainability to technology delivery are all vital if we are to maintain progress.
For more information or questions about the annual report, please contact me via the Green Delivery Unit: bob.crooks@defra.gsi.gov.uk.
2 comments
Comment by Robert Knight posted on
The advent of Windows 8.1, Intel quad core, very low power mini-PCs/stick-PCs could see substantial reductions in power usage by PCs - usually in the range of 80 watts to 200 watts, these units draw just 7.5 watts or so.
Still capable of running Microsoft Office 2013 for email, documents, presentations etc. as well as web access, these could become the standard PC with more powerful devices used for heavy number crunching, CAD etc.
Comment by Bob Crooks posted on
Thanks Robert, will publish around our Green IT community and advise our Sustainable Procurement team in Defra