The differentiation factor

Do you adjust your server room thermostat up? Do you set defaults to double-sided printing? Do you monitor your energy consumption? Maintain an efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system?

Do you use manufactured cartridges? Or keep air moving freely? Do you install variable frequency drives on air handling units? How often do you update computer power management features to save energy? Have you ever used solar to charge mobile devices?

These are the sorts of tips the Foundation for IT Sustainability, a non profit organisation founded by Mark Winter, the sales and marketing director of InTechnology, is giving to IT companies and resellers to make them environmentally aware.

Bianca Worth, a consultant to the foundation, says modifying a computer’s power management settings and turning PCs off when they are not in use can save both money and the environment.

She says resellers are advised to do that as a start. “It can be $50 per PC,’’ she says. “Shutting down computers is one of the easiest things you can do from an educational perspective or from a technology perspective.”

She says another obvious way to save the environment and cost is for companies to do double-sided printing. It cuts the paper bill in half. “A lot of companies don’t even do that today,’’ she says. “But it’s pretty simple. You just go and change the settings on your computer; it takes about five minutes to do it.”

Another good way is to switch to renewable energy sources. Modern information-based technology runs on electricity based on non-renewable sources such as coal-fired plants. That creates the greenhouse gas emissions that produce global warming. Switching to renewable energy therefore makes an enormous difference.

One of the most obvious things resellers can do is look at whether their products they are selling have environmental elements that they can promote to their customers.

“Energy is a big item for IT equipment and software as well,’’ Worth says. “Software can be developed in an energy efficient way and it all goes into the process. They can select software and hardware based on energy efficiency and standards like Energy Star.

“Through the product and selection process, they show the environmental impact or benefit of that product. It’s just one more feather in their cap in showing they are an environmentally conscious organisation.”

One of the areas many resellers don’t look at is water use, particularly if they are selling the equipment to data centres. While many do not think water is a problem for technology, vast amounts of it are used to cool large data centres.

Fresh water is a valuable resource, and with climate change, it has become more valuable than oil in many countries.

Sustainability platforms can also help resellers develop closer relationships with their customers. “They can be looking at their customer care plan post-sales where you are at the same time stopping electronic waste,” she says.

This is critical because every year millions of computers and electronics end up in landfill sites which generate methane. In Australia in 2008 more than 16 million TVs and computers were dumped in landfill. The computers and electronics contain toxins and contaminants such as lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium and polyvinyl chlorides. These materials are known to have toxicological effects.

They also contain precious non- renewable metals such as gold, silver and copper which could all be recycled or reused.

“With customers, you can develop relationships where you are not just selling products to them but they can continue the relationship and take back the product when it has reached the end of its life,” Worth says.

One company, Greenbox, has actually developed an award- winning business buying the returned equipment off resellers. It recycles the equipment, or crushes the components and then reuses them. Greenbox services include everything from de-installation to collection and sanitisation.

All up, Worth says resellers use internal initiatives and also adopt external measures for partners and customers.

This, she says, can become an important part of marketing the reseller and making the company stand out from its competitors.

“You can integrate that message in your corporate social responsibility initiatives,’’ she says. “Usually resellers have some sort of marketing team that puts together the message for the organisation.

“One of those messages can be that we are an environmentally sustainable company and that is a competitive differentiator,’’ Worth says.