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Green IT
"Social and environmental responsibility", "sustainable development", "environmental performance", "eco-friendly approach", nowadays such environmental challenges constitute a major preoccupation in the minds of all IT managers and decision-makers. The age when IT developed regardless of the impact it had on the environment, is long past. Now "Green IT" is the catch phrase, a trend which groups together a collection of practices and solutions designed to reduce the adverse effects of IT systems on the environment. "Green IT" also symbolizes ICT-based solutions that enable significant reduction of energy use in other sectors of the economy and in the society as a whole. Luxembourg companies have accepted the challenge and are ready to attack the problem with concrete solutions. Thus by adopting a green approach, such companies play their part in protecting the environment whilst reducing their costs and improving their corporate image.
Data centers, spearheads of Luxembourg’s green dynamics
"Luxembourgish key economic players and in particular those responsible for data centers consuming a great deal of energy, have become very sensitive to the whole question of Green IT", comments Steve Glangé, VP International Business Development with Datacenter Group Luxembourg. The abundance of initiatives in favor of sustainable IT development and their importance in both national and international terms only serves to emphasize the point. In this context, eBRC won the award "Best Data Centre Europe Operator 2008" from the Broadgroup consulting company which specializes in Green IT. “Today the eBRC data center in Windhof is powered by 100% green energy. Half of it is supplied (…) in the form of hydraulic power and the other half is generated by wind energy (…)".
If one considers that the price of electricity constitutes a real issue as energy consumption accounts for the largest slab of a data center’s running costs, then it is easier to understand the importance of eBRC’s green innovation. Luxconnect also runs a data center which is particularly innovative: it has an air and water cooling system, modular installation, free cooling, maximum insulation… "This data center really is almost 100% green. Our HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system saves us 3000 hours of free-cooling energy per year", affirms Edouard Wangen, director of Luxconnect. His company is now planning a project with LuxEnergie, a specialist in "energy contracting", to recycle as much of the energy leaving the data center as possible by using it to provide free heating for several buildings in a logistical center which is currently being planned in the immediate vicinity of the data center in Bettembourg. This emphasizes that there are plenty of ideas relating to the questions of how to reduce the costs and improve the environmental impact of data centers. Green IT is synonymous with both savings and the environment.
Towards a better accessibility of Green IT approaches: every company is affected
Efforts relating to Green IT are not just restricted to data centers, far from it. Nowadays all companies are affected. Everyone started to talk about Green IT about 2 or 3 years ago. But Green IT is not just a fad, which is why numerous campaigns have been organized by several different organizations (for example by the "Confédération Luxembourgeoise du Commerce" – the Luxembourgish Trade Confederacy, the "Union des Entreprises Luxembourgeoises" - the union of Luxembourg enterprises, or the Fedil Business Federation Luxembourg) to increase public awareness.
All these efforts seem to be bearing fruit as 66% of Luxembourg companies have undertaken to reduce their energy consumption during the past three years, primarily because of the costs involved (electricity accounts for about 10% of IT budgets) but also to comply with company values, to anticipate regulatory developments, to obtain a certification, etc. (source: CEPS/INSTEAD).
In fact, such measures promoting Green IT in companies are very varied and can turn out to be extremely interesting even if they are, at present, largely uncoordinated and implemented in an isolated fashion. Among the initiatives that are adopted most frequently are limitations on printouts, the promotion of electronic archiving, encouraging employees to work from home, the increased use of portable computers that use far less energy than desktop-workstations, the development of thin client systems without hard disk or ventilation, the implementation workflows and electronic signatures, greater use of video conferences to reduce traveling expenses, and turning off the computer every evening…
It is clear that the further development of Green IT depends on the provision of specific labels and above all on the development of effective regulation such as the "Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency", which was launched by the EU at the end of October 2008 with the aim of achieving considerable reductions in data center energy consumption. There is still a long way to go in relation to regulation, which is why the different working groups, which have already been set up in Luxembourg, will inevitably play a key role in the future.
