UK saves millions in green drive

Britain has saved up to £70 million a year by making government departments more energy efficient and the effort could help cut a huge budget deficit, a state watchdog said on Thursday, reports Reuters UK.

But as part of austerity-driven budget cuts, the new conservative-liberal government announced later it was axing funding for the watchdog Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), and having the environment ministry assume its duties.

In a report, the SDC said improving energy efficiency would assist the drive to close a budget gap now running at 11% of national output, and it praised the government's commitment to reducing emissions by 10% in 12 months.

A report on the carbon implications of IT, which was issued by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) earlier this year, ranks as an international high watermark according to BMC Software, and is helping Australian companies pioneer sustainable IT practices ahead of their international peers, states ITWire.

Chris Rixon, director of global field marketing for BMC Software, said the ACS report 'Carbon and computers in Australia' remains the most “comprehensive view of the net impact of carbon, broken down state by state”.

Rixon said he would like to see other nations perform a similar baseline examination of their IT related carbon footprint to help enterprises develop a clearer understanding of what is at stake.

The concept of sustainability has been an important talking point in corporate boardrooms around the world for the past few years, and such talk has also begun to permeate the technology sector - with more IT professionals getting in on the green action, writes Rackspace.

According to experts, green technology and computing has rapidly gained popularity, accumulating a buzz around it that suggests it can lessen impact on the environment as well as help companies to save a little 'green' as well.

Research from Forrester has shown that nearly 40% of businesses now have set plans for an enterprise carbon and energy management system, marking a dramatic increase over the one in four who responded thusly in November of last year.