Dubai Women's College holds a conference on Green IT

DWC's decision to draw attention to Green IT responds to urgent environmental demands calling for responsible management of IT resources in order to contribute to a worldwide growing interest to protect the environment and to minimize harms caused to the environment by irresponsible usage of IT resources.

HES Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan opened the conference and noted that the HCT has been a major contributor to the national quest to improve the quality of life in the UAE and is well-placed to study and debate the various issues that surround the impact of technology on the environment.

'Prevalent patterns of production, consumption and waste disposal of various equipments have made modern technologies a major strain on the environment. This harms not only the health of the ecosystem, but also the health of the population,' Sheikh Nahayan noted. Recognizing the necessity of a focused approach to meet the challenges of using modern technologies efficiently and responsibly, His Excellency encouraged redefining efficient use to include responsible use and more debate forums to propagate new ideas and research.

The impact of the IT sector on the environment was addressed by keynote speaker Fariba Partawi, Senior Information Technology Officer at the International Monetary Fund, Washington D.C. who reviewed up-to-date world statistics on the use of IT and projections for the next few years indicating a sense of urgency behind a worldwide collaborative approach to initiate and promote green IT policies and initiatives.

Partawi also discussed possible governments, consumers and IT industry solutions and roles in aiding a rather young green IT international approach. 'The role of Government as policy makers is to establish and implement e-waste policies and guidelines. There is a need to evaluate approaches that are being currently used everywhere. For example, European regulations are driving discussions about 'take-back,' whereby manufacturers must take back their electronic equipment for disposal at the end of its service life,' she noted.

As IT usage contributes to global warming, Kim Stevenson, Vice President of Communications, Media, and Entertainment at EDS - Texas, USA and member of the Texas IT Cluster Board, briefed the audience via a video conference from the USA about the Climate Savers Computing Initiative created for the aim of reducing power consumption of computers - and therefore their Co2 emissions - by 50% by the year 2010. This is to be achieved primarily through the use of more efficient components and by increasing the use of power management capabilities.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative's mission is to intelligently improve computers' energy efficiency in order to save money and fight climate change.

The conference, sponsored by Jumbo and with contributions from Epson and Cisco Systems, had other speakers who all agreed on the responsibility consumers should take to manage e-waste more efficiently. Consumers were encouraged to reduce, reuse, and recycle e-waste.

'Our role as an academic institute is to bring together policy makers, electronic manufacturers, providers and consumers to provide a broader and deeper view of environmental issues surrounding electronics. We will continue the dialogue we started today. We need to address these concerns at individual, organizational, and governmental levels. This conference is facilitating discussions and possible answers to key questions related to e-waste,' said Dr. Behjat Al Yousuf, Associate Director at DWC.

As a leading educational institute in Dubai, DWC reviewed its IT practices last year and is continuing to adopt new policies and guidelines in order to become an environmental friendly college. DWC was among the first local colleges to replace campus desktops with laptops. Today, 100% of DWC's users are using laptops which are all Energy Star 4.0 compliant in energy management. A laptop uses 40% less power than desktop, and LCD screen uses 27% less power than CRT.

In addition, DWC moved printers to common places where users share a single printing facility. This attempt started with a focus to reduce paper and printing consumables such as printer ink and cartridge and eventually reduce electricity. DWC also moved to Xerox printers that use solid ink rather than cartridges. This has brought the waste of printer cartridges and packaging per printer down from 157 lbs to 5 lbs.

DWC also deployed virtual servers VMWARE EX Servers reducing 25 servers onto a single server. This helped in deploying on demand computing as well as reducing heat generated from server rooms and the need to consume energy to cool the server rooms. The implementation of advanced power management and calibrated vector Cooling helped lower data center electricity and cooling costs. The introduction of blade centers that consolidate servers into the same chassis sharing network switches and power supplies generated reduction in server room by 2 racks.

Furthermore, DWC converted its telephones system to IP telephony last academic year. This has reduced the cabling and power consumption by 50%. DWC's IP telephony goes on low power consumption during off peak times. A partnership between DWC and Envirophone was announced during the conference according to which Envirophone placed collection boxes for recycling mobile phones at the college.