eWeek Europe posted an article yesterday, that talks about how the Environmental Agency (EA) has cut it’s CO2 emissions by almost a fifth. The EA goes on to urge others to join in it’s success.
How did the EA do it? Per the article:

Well it seems that it began use cleaner vehicles that helped reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. It also installed water saving technology in many its buildings and this has resulted in 12,000 m3 less water being used than five years ago.
Vehicle mileage was apparently reduced by helping staff make more sustainable travel choices. And office waste was reduced through a combination of improved recycling facilities and awareness raising with staff.
Another green improvement was installing voltage optimisation kit across 40 Environment Agency sites, that helped it cut energy use on average by eight percent at those sites.
It also said that automatic meter reading is being used at 500 sites which accounts for around 90 percent of total consumption. This, according to the EA, allows for better real time energy monitoring and management, reduces staff time in taking readings at remote sites, and results in accurate billing by its energy suppliers.

EA’s results are great and the ideas and methods they used are sound. However, nowhere in the article does it even mention the “greening” of technology. We have seen enormous savings realized by our customers (both government and private sector) through implementing our solutions that save cost and save CO2 emissions, simply by building efficiency into the technology structure. The article writer may have simply missed reporting about the EA’s technology greening, or the EA may have simply overlooked one of the most key areas for saving time, money, and the environment. I can tell you that the time to implement a 1E solution and realize savings, is a lot less time than it takes to install voltage optimisation kits across 40 Environment Agency sites.