What Obama Could Learn from Australian Green IT Plans

Published January 22, 2009

At some point the Obama administration will no doubt be putting together a plan to green the federal government's IT infrastructure. In doing it, he should look at a major report done for the Australian government about how to reform IT.

The Australian government asked Sir Peter Gershon to review its use of IT, and make recommendations on how to reform it and make it more effective. Gershon has had a successful career in private industry and helping reform government. Several years ago, he had reviewed the efficiency of the U.K. government and reports say his review and recommendations led to more than 20 billion pounds in savings.

He issued his report to the Australian government in October, 2008 -- you can read it here. Among his recommendations were ones to green the government's use of IT. The simplest recommendation was to mandate the use of equipment that meets green standards, such as from EPEAT.

In addition, he calls for the government to set an energy target for use of IT, with every government agency required to report on its progress towards the goal. Large agencies would be required to develop a clear, achievable energy plan, and they all would be required to include the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of their data centers. (For more about PUE, see my blog about it.)

There's more in the recommendations as well -- head here to read them. Let's hope the Obama team reads them as well.

Australian brand of green

Anonymous, January 31, 2009 - 19:03

Although I applaud Australia's plans to make IT green, Australia's "dirty little secret" is they burn tons of dirty coal to power their country.

In fact, 75 percent of Australia's electricity comes from coal. Coal is Australia's largest export.

The dirtiest coal that isn't accepted by foreign countries is burned in Australia to generate power.

The reason I say that is their policies are completely two-faced. You'd think Australia was one of the most environmentally aware places in the world - but in fact they are one of the biggest polluters per capita in the world.

So I applaud their efforts to reduce electricity in their IT operations, but they still burn and export more coal than anybody per capita and they should be ashamed for that.

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