Author: Westech | Date Published: 25/02/2009 | 15:00

Consumers and enterprises are specifically looking for and choosing IT suppliers that are going the environmental and health route. Society is becoming more conscious of going ‘green’ especially with so many initiatives of decreasing our carbon footprint in the media, from celebrities to housewives, even five year olds today know what the ozone layer is. Consumers are definitely more conscious considering that more than 50% of enterprises consider ‘greenness’ when selecting an IT supplier.

It seems power reduction is one of the most important goals for IT businesses when going “green” because this leads to a reduction in operating and capital expenses which is a bonus what with the energy crisis in South Africa and rising electricity prices. According to Gartner, IT organizations should recognize that the greatest savings come from employing power management features (www.sustainableit.co.za.) These features could be anything from switching off some desktop computers after work, to making use of conference calls instead of traveling to meetings, as this reduces the greenhouse gas emissions by replacing travel.

One of Westech’s partners Alcatel-Lucent develops and builds equipment that meets environmental requirements and has already achieved compliance with a number of environmental directives including ROHS and WEEE (1). Alcatel-Lucent enterprise switching and telephony equipment dissipates significantly less power than that of the company’s main competitors. Dissipating less power reduces energy costs not only associated with the equipment itself, but also supplementary equipment such as battery backups, power generator backups and air conditioners (2).

References

(1) Alcatel-Lucent, Strategic White Paper, Reducing power consumption Pg 1
(2) Alcatel-Lucent, Strategic White Paper, Reducing power consumption pg 1