Going green: Practise what you preach

According to Grant, the IT industry needs to look at its contribution to climate change on three different levels. Firstly it needs to take responsibility for the technology it develops and sells, ensuring that it's being manufactured and designed as efficiently as possible. The second area relates to the technology infrastructure it's creating for the customers, enabling them to reduce emissions and operating costs over the life of the technology. And the third is to create, and actively support industry bodies which foster the creation of environmentally sustainable technologies and business practices.

"My greatest reservation is that we'll turn this into a marketing exercise and look for sales opportunities rather than focus on the core objective of creating a more environmentally sustainable business sector," Grant said. "It's a very big deal and we'll get it wrong if we treat it superficially."

Over the next 12 months, Grant's fundamental goal is to develop the policy framework, and set a series of specific goals, objectives and measurements. With this initial framework in place he hopes to begin the implementation process in the new financial year.

"It's reasonable to think that within the next 18 months we will start to make environmental sustainability the basis for our day-to-day decisions, as well as the factors which already inform our thinking," he said.

Taking stock

Twelve months after coming to market with an ambitious plan to reduce its carbon emissions by 25 per cent by 2010, EDS managing director, Chris Mitchell, said the project is progressing on a number of fronts.

"We're tracking very well on the internal targets, simple changes like dimming switches and zoning lighting controls has reduced consumption by 15 per cent in some facilities," he said. "We are also in the process of introducing an employee offset program where we match dollar for dollar any investment our employees make to offset their own carbon emissions. That's been very well received." With the early targets well in his sights, Mitchell is focusing more heavily on electricity consumption within the company's datacentres, and is keen to use existing technologies as well as develop new more efficient methods of electricity delivery and usage.

"We loose an enormous amount of electricity simply in the process of transforming the power down from 240 volts," he said. "At the moment we're focusing on getting that power to where it needs to be in the most efficient manner."