Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Equipment Good Practice Guidelines for Environmental Sustainability: Review of current practice in Govt³ agencies

Executive Summary

1 Introduction

2 Methodology

3 Equipment volume

4 Equipment acquisition and disposal

5 Procurement

6 Sustainable use

7 Security cleansing

8 Hardware disposal

Appendix 1: Govt³ agencies

Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire

6 Sustainable use

The survey revealed a number of good-practice sustainable-use policies, although few appeared to be well documented or rigorously monitored. Practices included:

• printer defaults set for duplex black-and-white printing

• printing directed to centralised MFDs

• migration to LCD monitors with reduced power consumption

• server virtualisation and outsourcing of servers to a data centre

• activation of desktop inactivity defaults for power-saving options – screen and/or hard drive

• powering off desktop computers and monitors at night (and periodic rewards for staff who remember to do this)

• replacing desktop computers with more energy-efficient laptops.

Practices such as powering down desktop equipment at night varied widely. Some agencies instructed staff to leave equipment on at all times to facilitate overnight software updates, while others arranged for software updates whenever a computer logs on the network. Some were concerned about reducing the life of equipment with frequent shut downs. One agency with a mobile workforce has migrated to a laptop-only environment.

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