SA is beginning to adopt a green building rating system, similar to that used in Australia. A large part of constructing a green building will rely heavily on ICT.
This is according to Wolf Stinnes, chief solutions architect at Dimension Data, speaking at ITWeb's Green IT forum, in Bryanston, yesterday.
He noted that new building services are increasingly being designed to be maintained on the same IT infrastructure that a network will run on. "What used to be a separately managed service is now being dropped onto the backbone."
Stinnes said services such as CCTV have been in the IT realm for a while and, increasingly, new automated services like fire control and lighting systems are being shifted to the responsibility of the CIO.
When an IT component is added to the way buildings are designed, the systems and energy savings can become far more capable of being environment-friendly. "Green buildings are immersed in IT and all the components need to speak to each other. This will make the building operate efficiently."
Green steps
Stinnes believes the beginning of going green lies in measurement. "We need to start measuring what our carbon footprints are and how much of that is energy consumption. This will become key for business, because soon regulators will ask for it."
Secondly, he said companies should create a target of how much needs to change. "Any action is fruitless without realistic targets. Decide how you want to decrease your carbon footprint."
Stinnes concluded that it's no use waiting for others to start going green, because the agenda is already changing. "Take the initiative because the key performance indicators for green issues are coming."
DiData has installed a sensor system to control the lighting in its conference building on the Campus. If there are no people in a room, the lights are turned off automatically. According to Barry Bredenkamp, operations executive at the Central Energy Fund (CEF), DiData has saved in the region of R6 million a year on electricity costs using this system.
CEF's new office building will have several photovoltaic cells (solar-powered batteries) placed on the roof. This will hopefully power the entire office's technology solutions, he explained.
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