Greater London Authority

IT estate footprint analysis and reduction planning

This study was commissioned by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and estimated the total carbon footprint of the GLA’s IT estate. BFF worked with Computacenter and reviewed the energy consumption and embodied carbon of the GLA’s 700-plus desktops, 180 servers, printers, laptops and monitors. This revealed an IT carbon footprint of almost 430 tCO₂ per year, with in use emissions representing 55% of this total. David Munn, Head of IT at the GLA explained: “We want to ensure that our IT services are both cost-effective and environmentally efficient. By including future IT projects in the scope of the study, we were able to identify what new technologies would give us the best financial and environmental return on investment.” As part of the audit, BFF therefore calculated how five proposed IT projects would impact the GLA’s carbon footprint. Virtualisation came out as the greatest carbon payback per pound invested, followed by video-conferencing, hosting, thin client and multi-function devices. Learn more from recorded interviews with the project team.