In the current economic environment, arguments for the adoption of greener IT are focusing more sharply on how companies can save money. However, broader and increasing pressures on business towards the adoption of environmentally sustainable practices are becoming clear and you won't have been able to escape evaluating how your organisation can be more green.
Published in July 2009, the UK governments Low Carbon Transition plan says that 10 per cent of the annual emissions cuts between now and 2020 must be achieved through greater efficiencies in the workplace. Carbon reductions must go hand in hand with cost reduction or improved productivity for businesses to play. UK offices, factories, schools and hospitals need to reduce emissions to almost zero by 2050 for the UK to meet its obligations.
The good news is that being green is usually be a by-product of saving money, increasing ROI and becoming generally more efficient; in other words reducing your carbon output is just one of the competitive advantages of investing in greener processes.
Companies can use technology for everything from making their buildings more energy efficient - think heat and light management - through to more effective fleet management - GPS enabled trucks and smarter back-end systems could help to dramatically cut fuel consumption. It is true, however, there is plenty of low hanging fruit to pick by making a few simple changes, such as getting rid of equipment that is no longer required, or scrapping older kit for newer models that require less maintenance, support, space and power.
Typical methods to help make your organisations' IT greener and improve the efficiency of your infrastructure environment involve approaches such as consolidation, virtualisation, virtual desktop infrastructure, and cloud computing. BSG has defined approaches to all of these, detailing the advantages and benefits of each and why you should do this.
The BSG Approach – Reduce Costs, Reduce Carbon
At BSG we believe Green IT is more than just reducing your carbon footprint, we believe it is about improving the efficiency and manageability of your IT environment; from the desktop to the data centre! This is not just about consolidation and virtualisation, it is about using IT to streamline business processes, improve manageability, and in short we believe going green will save you money.
In other words, the more efficiently your IT is run and the more efficiently resources are used, the less wasteful you are and the better the return you get on your investment.
- Data Centre Virtualisation and The Cloud – consolidation and automation reduce the number of physical server and storage units your organisation uses, meaning a reduction in both power and cooling costs
- Managed Virtual Desktop – save up to £350k per 1000 desktops every 3-5 years
- Shared Services – economies of scale mean you reduce your technical and carbon footprint
- Data Centre Facilities Management – as a managed services provider BSG uses best practice techniques for both cooling to reduce costs and our carbon footprint
Furthermore, BSG holds ISO 14001, the most widely recognised environmental standard accreditation in the world has been awarded to BSG specifies a process for controlling and improving a company's environmental performance.
Advantages
- Less Physical Infrastructure (Servers, Rack, Power)
- Increased server utilisation from 5% to 80%
- Simplified management
- Adoption of the latest technologies and approaches
- Reduced TCO for your IT environment
Benefits
- Reduction in power and cooling
- Maximising your assets
- Reduced management cost overhead, allowing a business to redeploy staff to concentrate on more proactive tasks
- Aligning IT to meet business requirements
- IT is seen as an asset and not a cost centre
Next Steps
If you are a Business, IT, or Operations decision maker interested in discussing how BSG managed services can help cut costs and reduce your organisation’s carbon footprint whilst maintaining, or even improving, their competitive advantage then please click here to contact us today!
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