Did happen?
By Michael Smith
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced in July of 2008 that it was moving 10,000 civil servants to energy-saving laptops, as part of its Renew IT programme.
The move to laptops started in June and is planned for completion by the end of December. It will cover all staff within the department and its agencies Natural England and Animal Health, with the cost included within the department's outsourcing contract with IBM.
However, whether this has happened as yet or not cannot be ascertained at this moment.
Helen Ghosh, Defra's permanent secretary, said that most carbon emissions were generated through the production of hardware. "We are all going to have laptops which are produced in a very sustainable chain but which also have some of those key up to date facilities to make sure they are sustainable in use," she told the Commons' Environmental Audit Committee, in evidence published on 14 July 2008.
Ghosh added that the Renew IT programme will reduce the number of pieces of hardware any employee can have. She said she has a fixed personal computer in her office, a laptop for home use and a Blackberry for mobile use. "In the new world I will be able to have one item, which is a laptop which I shall carry to and from on my bicycle and plug in at the office or carry home and use at home," she said.
The department said that staff will receive a Lenovo ThinkPad X61, running Microsoft's Vista operating system and Office 2007 software, along with a laptop rucksack. These will be usable anywhere, are encrypted and have the option of logging on using a fingerprint.
"Introducing a single device, or identical kit for all staff, means a greener IT system as well as reduced physical asset charges and support costs for Defra," said a spokesperson, adding that the laptops use up to 70% less power than personal computers.
As they are smaller, they will also allow the department to make better use of its office space, the spokesperson added.
In her evidence to the committee, Ghosh said that Defra has donated a "substantial amount" of hardware to the newly formed UK Borders Agency, as a result of having hardware to spare through its upgrading programme. "So we are re-using within government some IT," she added.
The committee's report said that increased use of IT is blamed as the biggest single factor behind rising emissions of greenhouse gases from civil government departments.
It said attention should be paid to reconditioning hardware rather than buying new, and to the amounts of energy used for both equipment and for its air-conditioning.
Defra has also recently said that it is testing the power saving options within Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, as well as getting security guards to switch off machines that are left on without explanation.
On 17 July, the Cabinet Office released Greening Government ICT, recommending steps departments should take to improve their performance in this area.
Let us but hope that this is not all just some greenwashing yet again and that this department will not just also be the only one that will make that move.
What also is something that I just cannot understand is why so many governments – here and abroad – still tie themselves to Microsoft's products when there are perfectly well developed and functioning Open Source software is available, from full operating systems – most which have a far small footprint than any of Microsoft's ones – over full office suites that are also fully compatible with MS Office, to other application software. All of those also, if i may add, primarily, to be had for the asking price of zero.
Some governments are beginning to understand than a number of savings, of the financial and environmental, can be made and had with the use of Open Source and especially a fair number of local authorities and government departments in other countries of Europe are going the Open Source route to get the savings on both those levels.
Hardware obsolescence is not built into the likes of Linux operating system, for instance, and such, and most have much lower requirements as far as processing power and RAM are concerned that they can be installed on older machines and still have them run at cost saving level.
In addition to that Laptops and Netbooks preloaded with Linux distributions are cheaper to purchase because of firstly no cost for the OS and secondly no need for extreme high processing power and huge RAM. The Eee PC from ASUS is, for instance, one of those that comes to mind here and nowadays one can get even get machines from other manufacturers pre-installed with the Linux distro of your choice reducing the cost often per machine by as much as $200.
But, it would appear that the majority of governments, local and central, here and abroad, do not understand that this is possible and rather stays with the giant Microsoft who will take them to the cleaners as regards to license fees.
© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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Defra to move staff to green laptops
