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Just how much damage is IT doing to the environment? A new report investigates.

Businesses, governments and individuals are increasingly aware of the impact they exert on the environment. This is no less true of IT departments, which have in the past few years been forced to acknowledge their considerable carbon footprints.

But while the problem is universally recognised, it is difficult to get a handle on exactly how much damage is being done. There are many available metrics, and balancing the detrimental effect of IT equipment against its positive contribution is too complex a task to even begin.

One company, however, has come up with a useful visualisation. According to web hosting provider Amenworld, the average server in the UK uses 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of power more than it would if it were more efficiently configured.

According to the company’s own calculations, that wasted energy corresponds to 632kg of CO2 unnecessarily released into the atmosphere per year.

Therefore, the carbon footprint of the power wasted by all the servers in the UK in one year is equivalent to the damage caused 2,643 jumbo jets each carrying 423 passengers to India and back. Or, to put it another way, one jumbo jet carrying a single passenger to India and back one million times.

For some IT directors with hefty commitments to offshoring, this might sound less like a disaster scenario, and more like next month’s itinerary.

Further reading

The environmental cost of document air freight
Documents make up the overwhelming majority of global air cargo