Greening Government ICT Strategy launched

Yesterday, the Cabinet Office released the Greening Government ICT Strategy report. According to Computer Weekly, the government has set its central department CIOs with the challenge of reducing the carbon emissions their departments produce. The target is for central departments to be carbon neutral by 2012.

The strategy outlines 18 steps that CIOs should take. These range from activity as simple as making sure staff turn off PCs after work to carrying out more complicated audits of the energy use of datacentres. The plan is to focus first on the quick wins, by encouraging behaviour change to reduce waste and save money. Eventually the programme will evolve to recommend the use of energy-efficient technology such as energy re-use systems, virtualisation technology and the introduction of thin client computing.

The government also called on private companies and individuals to follow its example, claiming that turning off computers outside work time will reduce annual CO2 emissions by the same amount as if 40,000 cars were taken off the road.

There is additional advice on carbon-saving actions here.