Storage Expo: Tech needs to look at bigger green picture

It’s all well and good for the IT industry to bolster its green credentials through better manufacturing processes and lifecycle management, but we need to start focusing on the knock-on impacts technology can have on the planet, too.

So says John Collins, service director at analyst Freeform Dynamics, during his keynote session entitled ‘Architecting for Efficiency’ on the first day of Storage Expo at London’s Olympia exhibition centre.

“Two per cent of the carbon footprint in the world is IT related. So a lot of the efforts around green problems up until now was trying to deal with the two per cent…’We need more efficient storage, more efficient servers…’” he said.

“[By looking at the 98 per cent too we can focus on] how can IT actually make workflow shorter, automate or deliver services at a lower cost? The good things start when we [do that]. It’s very, very important that we get that in terms of making a real difference.”

But, it’s not just the environment that has something to gain in all of this. Organisations, employees and customers too can benefit from an IT set up that is much more efficient and therefore helping to differentiate what the company has to offer.

He cited a London borough that he recently spoke to which suffers a 40 per cent churn in its population each year and where many of its residents don’t speak English as their first language.

“[One of its] biggest problems and challenges is to just deliver services. They had moved from IT being the thing that got in the way and prevented them from actually providing those services, to IT being a foundation,” Collins added.

“They haven’t actually saved any money. They’ve moved off the back foot onto a stable base. This is just the beginning for them and what they’re starting to do now is add more value.”

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