Computing Awards - Green project of the year shortlist

Gm2

Logistics company Gm2 distributes and delivers more than 600 tonnes of goods a year to customers in the paper manufacturing industry. By introducing virtual servers, the company has cut its power consumption and datacentre footprint by a third. Gm2 senior executives meet every month to report on the firm’s green programmes and generate new ideas.

The Co-operative Group

The Co-operative Group expects to reduce energy consumption by 1.68 million kWh every year by adopting Wake-up on LAN, which automatically shuts down in-store tills and related devices, and powers them up again in time for business. The system should save 722 tonnes of C02 every year, while also extending refresh cycles.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) customers can offset their carbon emissions through an RBS-branded portfolio, by supporting projects that compensate carbon emissions, such as sustainable timber in Mexico and energy efficiency in India. Customers can offset a choice of activities including flights and car journeys by using a calculator that provides details of carbon emissions and the offset cost for the chosen element.

Leeds City Council

Leeds City Council’s IT team reduced energy consumption in the department by 10 per cent in 2007 and saved 172,000kWh in the past year. Leeds reduced its number of servers to 10 through virtualisation, and expects to save 767 tonnes of carbon emissions over the next three years. The council has also reduced its footprint through initiatives such as mobile working, car sharing, and appointing “energy guardians” to monitor consumption.

National Australia Group

National Australia Group (NAG) has reduced hard copy reports distributed through its 400 branches, making them available in a network-based folder, halving courier journeys and reducing hardcopy output by 6.8 million sheets a year ­ the equivalent of saving 1,700 trees. A new remote power management system powers down 8,500 PCs at the end of business, switching them back on to receive security fixes, and shutting them down again. The system went live in June and is saving an estimated 3,800kWh every day.

London Borough of Waltham Forest

Waltham Forest has signed a managed print services agreement with Dell, introducing multi-function devices. Printers have been reduced from 1,100 to 600, fax machines are down to 100 from 600, and photocopiers are down from 360 to 260. Paper use has been reduced by a third and department heads have been made responsible for managing their own printing budgets. Modern, power-efficient devices are reducing energy consumption, and the introduction of high-capacity, recyclable toner cartridges has cut replacement costs and waste.

Reed Managed Services

Reed has replaced all 4,500 of the group’s PCs with Wyse thin-client terminals. The project led to a reduction in hourly power consumption of 5.4 million kWh, and introduced a new datacentre infrastructure based on blade servers and virtualisation software. The datacentre now operates at a higher temperature, reducing the need for air conditioning, storage drives have been halved and the overall IT budget is down 20 per cent. <