Hampshire County Council wins more awards for greenery :: PublicTechnology.net :: e-Government & public sector IT news + job vacancies:

The first of the awards was for ‘Outstanding Achievement’ in the Local Authority category of the Cabinet Office's ‘Greening Government’ ICT awards. The second award was in the Sustainable ICT category of the national public sector IT Excellence awards.

The awards recognise the importance of technology in reducing carbon footprint and increasing efficiency. Hampshire has driven down the amount of energy used by its IT over many years and these efforts were praised by the awards’ judges.

Steps have included the introduction of technologies to support more flexible working, as well as the new data centre at the County Council’s new Winchester headquarters Elizabeth II Court, which will be one of the UK’s leading low-carbon offices. The building is being used as a case study for best practice by the Carbon Trust and sees waste heat from the data centre servers recycled to heat the building in winter months.

The introduction of new thin clients has also been key to the County Council’s green IT approach. This system relies on central servers for processing instead of individual PCs, saving 792,000 kWh a year. With a typical home using 4,400 kWh of electricity per year, enough energy is now being saved to power 180 homes.

Other benefits include reduced support costs and travel, with 22,000 fewer miles travelled by staff last year, a longer life span for equipment, and lower energy bills - all saving Hampshire tax payers £200,000 every year.

Simple steps such as encouraging all staff to turn off their PCs at the end of the day and thinking twice about printing documents, have also helped to save energy and to reduce the County Council’s electricity bill by over £100,000 a year.

Hampshire found that:

* 70% of otherwise wasted heat from the new computer centre of the County Council’s new headquarters Elizabeth II Court is recycled in the winter months to heat the building;
* Printers, known to generate high carbon footprint, have been reduced from a people:printer ratio of 4:1 to 27:1 in the new headquarters building;
* The County Council has a 65% (and rising) use of ‘thin client’ terminals rather than PCs, significantly reducing energy consumption and carbon costs of manufacture and disposal of technology;
* New technologies for secure mobile and flexible working are enabling more efficient use of office space;
* The County Council’s policy encouraging staff to switch off all technology when not in use saves an average estimated £100,000 per annum.