IT Sustainability

Our approach to environmental sustainability

In IT Services we have a strong commitment to reducing our impact on the environment. We are also using IT solutions to help the University to reduce its environmental footprint.

IT at the University accounts for approximately 8,330 Tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually. In 2013, IT services consumed about 18% of the total electricity used by the University.[1]

Recent reductions in the impact of IT

The IT Services 'Green ICT Action Plan' set out to reach a 11% reduction in IT Services’ carbon footprint from 2008 to 2013. During this period, we were able to achieve a 14% reduction.

We achieved this through:

  • improvements to data centres;
  • a major push on power management of the PC estate;
  • consolidation of services and heavy use of virtualisation; and
  • the introduction of student pull printing.

In the first half of 2014, 20% of computers given to IT Services as unwanted had been refurbished and reused elsewhere on campus.[2]

Footnotes

[1] IT usage in 2013 was approximated using the SUSE-IT tool to be 15,510 MW-hr. Using a conversion figure of .537 kg CO2 equiv per KW-hr, this equates to 8,329 Tonnes CO2 equiv. Sources exclude offsite computing. The total electrical use of the University in 2012-2013 was 46,754 Tonnes CO2 equivalent. The IT percentage of electricity consumed is thus 8329*100/46754=17.8%.

[2] The CMDB indicates 2,077 PCs, servers, workstations and laptops were given to the Life Store between 1 January and 17 July 2014. 429 of these have been re-used on campus.