The morning while havinga coffee with the CSR manager of a large retailer, he mentioned the fact that on a semi-frequent basis he would find himself going around the office shutting off computers. After working hours.
That while his firm, in his opinion, had done a good job of developing and communicating a framework for sustainabilty, there were still some (large) gaps.
One of them being the awareness and engagement of employees.
Sometimes though, it is not about awareness and engagement. It is about systems, and how systems are planned, built, and managed to remove the risks of human error, abuse, or ignorance.
In short, the problem he faced was not that his 350 employees weren’t aware of the link between their computer and the coal fired power plant ruining the air quality of Shanghai, it was a problem of the I.T. / Operations department not being engaged as part of their initiatives at the program in a way that leveraged their skills.
Skills that without a doubt are more relevant in identifying, and addressing, the energy waste of computers than the average executive developing/ dictating a global sustainability policy.
So, if you (or firm) is one of those who are seeing waste with computer usage, then make the call. Get I.T. involved, and leverage their skills to create a program (or buy the appropriate program) that turns the monitors off after 5 minutes of idling.
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