These simple and easy IT strategies for cutting energy consumption and sourcing more efficient IT equipment can help the environment, and save money for your small or midsize business
Smart information technology practices can reduce the environmental impact of conducting business, and help small and medium-sized businesses reduce expenses.
With employee awareness and participation, even the busiest business can adopt simple "green" strategies that require little or no additional equipment or labor expenditures. Consider these enviro-friendly and cost-cutting IT strategies:
Turn it Off
Reducing electricity consumption can help your business save money and the environment. U.S. computers used nearly 64 billion kilowatt hours of energy in 2005, costing more than $6 billion, according to GreenIT, a consultancy focused on sustainable solutions for IT systems. Some solutions:
- Activate the sleep settings on idle monitors and PCs. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates this action can save up to $75 per computer in annual power costs. From one management console, IT staff can use commercial software to control the power management features in networked computers.
- Replace power-hungry cathode ray tube monitors and televisions with more efficient LED monitors.
- Converge multiple networks into a single infrastructure to reduce the number of devices (and power they consume), miles of wiring, and ultimately, amount of electric and electronic waste; another benefit is more efficient centralized management.
- Deploy wireless networks to facilitate more flexible work environments and reduce cabling and power requirements.
Shop Green
When replacing IT equipment, or making new purchases to support expanding operations, choose products that meet the environmental standards measured by the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool. EPEAT, operated by the Green Electronics Council, is a procurement tool that helps buyers evaluate, compare, and select desktop computers, notebooks, and monitors based on these environmental attributes:
- Reduction or elimination of environmentally sensitive materials
- Material selection
- Design for end of life
- Product longevity or extended life cycle
- Energy conservation
- End-of-life management
- Corporate performance
- Packaging
Equipment and device manufacturers declare, and EPEAT periodically verifies, that registered products conform to the IEEE 1680 environmental performance standard.
Other tips for buying green and preserving IT budgets include purchasing IT products that perform several functions instead of one. They are easier to manage, cost less, and use less power than multiple single-purpose devices. For example, the functionality of separate devices such as router, firewall, VPN, Wi-Fi access point, telephony gateway, and voice messaging can be found on single devices.
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