The green technology paradox

IT has a major role to play in tackling global warming. Yet it also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems. The NHS, like other public bodies, is starting to wake up to the issues. In the first of a series of features on green IT for the NHS Resource Centre, Andrew Donoghue reports.

Going beyond teleconferencing, a complete remote working strategy would result in fewer physical offices being needed. IT-enabled strategies like “hot desking” would allow NHS organisations to opt for smaller facilities; especially when their staff spend most of their time in the community.

At the moment, however, technology is often used as an add-on to existing ways of doing things. The result, as set out in a recent report from the Cabinet Office called Greening Government ICT, is that emissions from the public sector are still rising.

Targets and strategies

The NHS currently accounts for around 3 per cent of the UK's carbon emissions, or about 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. But it has committed to cut this figure by 60 per cent by 2050.

To help drive the effort to get there, the NHS Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) was established in April this year (2008). Although it's only a four person team at present, the unit’s remit is to provide leadership and guidance on sustainability and carbon reduction.

"Although at an individual level, leaving a monitor on overnight doesn't consume very much, the NHS is big. It employs1.3 million people, so the combined impact of what they do is huge," says David Pencheon, director of the SDU.

On the IT front, the push to get emissions down will need to take place on two fronts; firstly, getting people to change their ways of working so that new technology delivers on its green potential; and secondly making IT itself as green as possible.

On the second front, the Greening Government ICT report has a number of practical suggestions, such as making sure that server rooms are cooled as efficiently as possible, making sure that PCs are switched off at night, and changing printer settings to use less ink, paper and power.

Meanwhile, the IT industry is doing its bit by making servers and PCs more efficient. Virtualisation (or getting a server to do more than one thing) reduces the number of servers and data centres that an organisation needs – which not only saves power but money. The latest super-efficient thin client desktops, meanwhile, use as little as 4 Watts of power, compared to 80 for a standard PC.

However, in another twist of the green IT paradox, this means organisations will need to buy more – or at least newer – IT to benefit. And they will have to plan their procurements carefully to make sure the potential benefits are delivered.

The Greening Government ICT report puts a lot of emphasis on organisations looking to make their IT systems carbon neutral across their lifetimes by 2020. This not only means considering how much energy they will use while in use, but how they will be manufactured and disposed of.

The NHS: standard-bearer for green IT?

Many experts think that the NHS should be leading rather than following in this area. Tony Roberts, chief executive of IT charity Computer Aid, which donates PCs from UK organisations to the developing world, says that large-scale purchasers of technology like the NHS should push IT vendors to develop greener products tailored to its needs.

"If government wants to attain its carbon neutral targets, it needs to address the 75 per cent of the problem, the CO2 inherent in manufacture, by using its massive procurement leverage to reward those producers who have the 'greenest' manufacturing and production processes," he says.

From priority to practice

While there is a national purchasing agency that can (and does) buy equipment for the whole health service, individual trusts are not obliged to use it, which makes defining the NHS’s overall buying power difficult.

"Procuement power is manifested through hundreds of NHS organisations,” says Mr Pencheon. “That is great for local innovation - but it’s appalling if you want to systematically change things across the NHS. We have to get the hearts and minds of 500 organisations."

However, he feels that there is now plenty of drive for green IT from the top of the NHS. The establishment of the SDU itself is evidence of this. Meanwhile, the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS management, and the Faculty of Public Health Management, which represents public health professionals, have published reports urging their members to take action.

These bodies point out that the NHS is such a huge undertaking that it has a special role to play in British strategies to tackle climate change. But it also has a vested interest in doing so; it is the NHS that will have to deal with the ill health caused by climate change, if the strategies fail.