The British government has expressed its desire to be the first administration in the world to make all its IT networks completely carbon neutral.
According to Tom Watson, minister for transformational government, a review of the public sector IT infrastructure will be carried out to determine how best to achieve this.
He said the government wants its central office estate to be carbon neutral by 2012 and it wants the same to be achieved across all government by 2020.
Carbon offset schemes would help to counteract the emissions generated by public sector IT networks, but the focus would be on energy reduction measures, Mr Watson confirmed.
For example, he said computer systems generate around 20 per cent of all carbon emissions produced by government, so simply switching them off at night could have a dramatic impact.
Audits of data centres and servers in data and server racks could also be useful to ensure they are running at maximum efficiency, he added.
A recent report funded by the Climate Group, whose members include Cisco and Microsoft, concluded that IT companies could reduce global CO2 emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 through energy efficiency improvements and adoption of green technology.
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Last Updated: 30/07/2008 17:47
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