Below we’ve highlighted five eco-friendly IT changes organisations can make to reduce their carbon footprint. And they all just happen to save money as well:
Solutions For Eco-Friendly IT
Change PC hard drives to SSDs
What’s the solution?
Replacing traditional mechanical hard drives with more reliable solid state drives (SSDs).
What’s the environmental benefit?
The hard drive is the part that most commonly fails in a PC. Replacing mechanical hard drives with SSDs increases the lifespan of PCs, meaning less IT waste.
And unlike mechanical drives, SSDs also don’t use moving parts. This means consume less power, saving electricity.
Mechanical vs solid state harddrives
What’s the financial benefit?
Longer-lasting PCs mean a reduced expenditure on IT hardware.
And as we’ve previously covered as well, SSDs work faster than mechanical hard drives. This increases staff efficiency, making them more productive.
Change monitors to energy saving models
What’s the solution?
Switch older PC monitors to newer eco-friendly models.
What’s the environmental benefit?
The average PC uses about 400 kw/h of electricity per year, producing around 250kg of Carbon Dioxide in the process. The monitor accounts for around half of this in the case of older models.
The most efficient monitors now available can reduce power consumption to around 12 kilowatt-hours per year with carbon emissions of 4.2kg per year – just 3% of that of older monitors.
What’s the financial benefit?
With the overall kilowatt-hour usage of the PC reduced by nearly half, you can expect energy costs to be similarly reduced. At 13p per kilowatt-hour, the average PC costs £52 per year to run. Halving that cost for ten members of staff can save around £260 per year.
As energy-saving monitors are designed to go to sleep when not in use, they also have a longer lifespan. This also decreases the need for replacements and therefore reduces spend on new IT hardware.
For eco-friendly IT hardware, please get in touch with our IT procurement team.
Cloud hosted servers
What’s the solution?
Stop hosting your server in-house and transfer your data to a cloud environment (such as Akita’s).
What’s the environmental benefit?
In-house servers are power-hungry. Not only do servers run 24/7, but they also require cooling systems, monitoring and failover solutions. All of these elements further increase an already-hefty carbon footprint.
It’s much more energy efficient to cool a datacentre setup than multiple, individual servers. Our Custodian data centre has won awards for its sustainable credentials, using approximately half the power of a traditional data centre. This is achieved through smart solutions such as fresh air cooling and temperature-decreasing humidifiers.
What’s the financial benefit?
An in-house server can cost as much as £200 a month in energy costs alone. Then there’s the expense of owning and maintaining the equipment.
The majority of the time you’ll also be paying to maintain space you’re not using. And when you do reach capacity, there’s the additional cost of upgrading hardware.
Our hosted server solution does away with all of these problems. And, depending on how much data you have, our monthly cost is likely cheaper than your electricity bill alone.
Adopt hosted desktop
What’s the solution?
Move staff desktops to the cloud, allowing them to access work systems from any location.
What’s the environmental benefit?
Alongside the eco benefits of a cloud setup (as per the above), staff are able to work from any location. This means fewer journeys to the office to access PCs and work systems, reducing the travel carbon footprint.
What’s the financial benefit?
There’s a long list of financial benefits to hosted desktops – view our dedicated hosted desktops page for more information.
Use Microsoft Dynamics 365 to manage resources
What’s the solution?
Adopting Dynamics 365 can help you monitor and maximise resources used in your organisation, whether that’s warehouse stock management, use of raw materials or deployment of field service agents.
What’s the environmental benefit?
Dynamics 365 can make your organisation more environmentally friendly in a number of ways.
As just a few examples, a Dynamics 365 for Field Service solution can plot the most efficient routes between customer jobs, reducing travel. A Business Central manufacturing solution can show where resources are being wasted, leading to environmentally friendly solutions and designs. With a smart Business Central ERP warehousing solution, you can run a floating warehouse system that places items in the closest available spaces, reducing the distance that forklift trucks have to travel (saving on fuel and your carbon footprint).
What’s the financial benefit?
Huge. From improving sales to increased staff efficiency to reduced resource expenditure, there’s an enormous number of financial benefits that Dynamics 365 can deliver for organisations. For more information or to arrange a demo, please get in touch.
Find out more about how using our professional IT procurement service could make your organisation more eco-friendly and save you money:
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