Things you should know



In this section we provide you with some Green IT facts and figures.

Many of the figures quoted below have come directly from Greenwise-IT surveys or have been ‘discovered’ during various Greenwise-IT Consultancy assignments.

• In a typical organisation ICT equipment accounts for 20% - 30% of the total electricity used in offices, with around two thirds of this being consumed by PCs

• In 2007 the operation of ICT equipment accounted for 10% of UK electricity consumption

• 2% of global carbon emissions come from the manufacture and use of ICT equipment. This is a similar figure to emissions from the Airline industry – But – the emissions from the Airline industry and reducing, and those from ICT are increasing!

• In the US the annual electricity costs for Data Centres will reach $4.7bn by 2011

• It is calculated that in the UK 1,000 PCs running 24/7 cost around £70,000 in electricity p.a.

• Leaving a PC on all the time costs x4 times more in energy than if it was switched off at night and weekends

• One third of UK employees do not switch their PCs off overnight – costing a total £123m p.a. in electricity

• On standby a PC still uses 70% of full power

• A third of servers have utlisation rates below 3%, and almost two-thirds have utlisation rates below 10%

• In a typical data centre 38% of the ICT equipment energy is consumed by storage

• Globally 210b e-mails are sent daily (more than 2m e-mails per second!

• In the manufacturing process a PC consumes 100 times its final weight in raw materials

• A typical Thin Client terminal requires consumes at most 30% of the power of a typical PC

• Non domestic energy consumption from ICT equipment in the UK increased by 70% from 200 – 2006, and is expected to increase by a further 40% by 2020

• In 2008 the UK central government recorded a 3% increase in carbon emissions from electricity usage – one of the primary reasons was the increase arising from ICT equipment

• Implementing a PC Power Management solution can save on organisation with 750 Desktops around £20,000 p.a. in electricity costs