Going Green in IT

08
Nov
2010

Jeffrey Brandt

(or not everyone can use goats to mow the lawn)

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking and attending the inaugural Green Matters: Green Cities, Business and Beyond conference in New Orleans.  Let me say at the outset, it was a wonderful and inspiring event.  The best thing I liked about it was most of the other speakers’ very practical attitudes towards greening.

Examples of this practicality included New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s comment that green initiatives had to have political sustainability as well.  John Williams (John C. Williams Architects) said you need to do what is “affordable” and “reasonable.”  I think my two favorite comments were Ted Banks (Kraft Foods) who said that “good intentions were not good enough” and Gillian van Muyden’s (Lendale City Attorney’s Office) comment that we shouldn’t let “the perfect become the enemy of the good.”

I was asked to bring some of my practical “green” experience as a former CIO and consultant to the topic of The Greening of the CIO.  The first issue is a mindset - your attitude and outlook. Too many people think of green as something wild and wacky from the west coast (with some apologies to my friends in California).  I have to admit, my first formal introduction was equally poor.  But there are good, simple, practical reasons to include green thinking in your IT.

I made a bet with the audience that they had existing projects going on that had green elements to them, they just weren’t thinking of them that way.  Have you virtualized your servers?  There are many nongreen reasons, from management control to disaster recovery .  It just also happens to be very green when it comes to electricity and cooling. Looking at reengineering and automating different work processes? In addition to saving time and other reasons the projects might have been started, a lot of them may also reduce paper or eliminate the need to be in the office, improving your green footprint.

The practical focus areas I outlined in my presentation included:paper reduction, hardcopy storage, process improvement & workflow automation, technology, energy reduction, recycling, purchase and education.  Time didn’t permit to dive into each area in detail, but my two quick tips for law firms, big or small, is focus on what you CAN do.  Most everyone has computers and printers.

Whether you have one or one thousand PCs, putting them into a sleep mode (with tools like setpowersoftware.com) is a great green way to save money by reducing CO2 emissions and electricity. If you can, turn them off at night (the ultimate way to save energy).  When it comes time to refresh your PCs, in addition to your normal RAM, disk and speed criteria, look at the Energy Star labels - you can save 15-25% on your energy bill.  If you are at a point of virtualizing your desktop, consider one of the many specific thin client workstations over a fully loaded personal computer.

Did you realize printers have sleep modes as well?  Duplex printing is another great way to save paper.  Installing PDF printer drivers allows your users to make a copy of something and take it with them, without wasting paper.  I’ve seen as much as 30-40% reduction of prints by some individuals who print to PDF.  Look at your default fonts.  Yes some fonts use more toner than others.  The folks at Ecofont have specially designed fonts (with holes in them) that can extend your printer’s toner by as much as 25%.

For many reasons (cost, politics, etc.) we can’t all do the big things - and we don’t have to.  Some projects (like the compost bin outside the managing partners office) may not have legs.  But by keeping your mind open, and taking small, practical steps, you will make your green IT initiatives grow.  Everyone’s contributions add up into a great big result.