As momentum builds around eco-friendly practices, businesses of all sizes are seeing to heighten their environmental accountability in terms public accountability and as a way to conserve and gain capital. It's a win-win situation when an club can tout its "green" sense as well as save money along the way! However, awareness is but one aspect of this increased focus on ways to recycle, reuse, and conserve. Environmental accountability runs through every aspect of the enterprise cycle from the power flowing into the organization, to the use of paper and plastic products, to enhancing the fuel efficiency of logistical equipment and nowhere are these principals more prevalent than in the core It infrastructure and ancillary systems.
The most logical place to start with conservation such as this is in the lifeblood of these systems, power. The use of electricity in technology makes it central to the green consulation in any organization. seeing ways to save on electricity costs are various and can be both easy and hard to implement. In order to know where you need to be, you have to know where you've been. So, performing an energy audit is a very recommended first step toward comprehension what your needs are and being able to quantum the impact of your decisions. In some areas, your energy victualer may offer an audit service. Those of you who use Intuit's QuickBooks small enterprise accounting software will find a feature called "Green Snapshot." This aid will, among other things, help recognize areas that you can work on change to help reduce your input of electricity.
Cell Phone Backup
The Us federal government has some thoughprovoking facts and statistics on their website, and one of the topics is the inherent savings from easy changes. It's as easy as turning off Pcs, fax, and copier machines at the end of the day. Many of us, and I am guilty of this, leave laptops and desktops running for days at a time without a second thought. Statistics advise that there are significant savings to be had by using some discipline and base sense. For example, cell phone maker Nokia estimates if one billion population unplugged their cell phone chargers when not in use then the savings in energy would be enough to power 100,000 homes!
While unplugging your cell phone charger is an easy first step, there are other power considerations such as the use of power-saving modes in the network, Pcs, monitors, copiers, and other linked gear. A freeware tool that helps to address power considerations, created by Seattle-based Verdiem, is Edison. It's a neat limited tool that lets you as a matter of fact program power-down tasks when individual machines are not in use for long periods of time.
An easy power recovery tactic is to use gear that has an energy Star 4.0 or above rating. The energy Star program is operated by the U.S. Group of energy and has advanced guidelines for the energy consumption of technology products. This includes Pcs, servers, monitors, printers, multifunction devices, and more. In order to earn yielding and the energy Star label, products have to meet inevitable standards for power consumption and management. This includes the capability to place a computer or a monitor into a low-power "sleep mode" if that appliance has not been actively used for a pre-designated time period. energy Star products are also designed to operate at lower temperatures and can help a enterprise save on cooling costs. Printers, scanners, and other imaging devices that meet the latest energy Star specifications typically use 25% to 60% less energy than other similar gear, and can save an estimated 5 in energy costs over their life span.
Purchasing energy Star compliant equipment requires something that many in the Smb space have been reticent to do since the start of the economic decline, spend money. as a matter of fact being a green enterprise does not mean throwing out older It gear. Many small and mid-sized businesses are riding it out with older equipment, but in some cases there is limited selection but to upgrade. equipment breakdowns, staffing needs change, and obsolete applications are just a few of the reasons that organizations will make some purchases in the next 12 to 18 months. Don't forget that if you do have gear to arrange of, never toss it in the trash! There are numerous options for responsible recycling of these assets. Associates like Minnesota-based Mpc have a "take-back" program in some states including New Jersey and Pennsylvania. If there is a yielding concern where a certificate of destruction is required, Mpc can furnish that. There are also other smaller operations around the country that can recycle old gear, and can keep unwanted equipment out of landfills.
If your firm bites the bullet and decides to spend high-priced capital on these upgrades, doesn't it make sense to explore ways to minimize the impact? One recipe that has gained big momentum recently is the move towards consolidation. The key technological develop that has allowed for this to come to be a reality is the rise of virtualization.
Instead of replacing many aging machines, why not apply one server and operate software to rebuild those old corporal servers into virtual machines? The Smb community is embracing this selection and reaping the rewards of lower power consumption, reduced cooling expenses, and simplified management. It has come to be easier to move in that direction with the increased competition as long-time powerhouse Vmware faces challenges from Microsoft's Hyper-V and Citrix's XenServer who both have less costly alternatives. Server virtualization is only the first step to decreasing costs. Citrix has well-received technology in this regard with the capability to centralize desktop applications in a data center and "present" them through a portal to users logging on from on-site or remote machines. Microsoft has joined the parade with their Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (Mdop). As individual Pcs refresh or the user count changes, Smbs no longer have to buy fully loaded Pcs with all the extra memory and applications. Instead, they can deploy less costly machines with small or no hard drives or even machines running a "thin client." There are costs to think such as those linked with purchasing, energy to run them (following the green theme!), and licensing.
But, why stop at consolidation on-site? The Smb community is seeing towards outsourcing as a way to reduce It costs and support. By buying storage and applications on an as needed basis, there is no longer a requirement to have a full-time It someone on the payroll. The emergence of "cloud computing" has made this easier and more cost effective. Why would an Smb, especially a startup, want to invest tens of thousands of dollars on servers, licenses, firewalls, etc. When they can essentially rent them? Here's a easy version of how it works. A third-party It aid victualer whether co-locates a corporal server or builds a virtual server to house a customer's mail server, file/print server, database server, or whatever else would be thorough for that customer's needs. The customer then connects to these assets through a gain virtual incommunicable association (Vpn) and works just as though those machines were in the company's office. All applications are centrally located, and any reputable third-party victualer will have a data center that is redundant in services such as power, Internet, firewall(s), and failover access. So for a monthly fee, your employees can work the way they do today, and you can lower your carbon footprint by eliminating the energy costs of operating a server room or data center that has to be cooled, powered, and managed.
There is other "green" advantage to thoughprovoking to this option. Employees can work wherever there is a solid Internet connection, and this allows them to "telecommute" a few days a week lessening the power load in the office, taking additional vehicles off the road, and eliminating the linked carbon emissions from sitting in traffic! Studies show that workers who are allowed to telecommute are more productive, happier, and often put in more hours per week than those who are tethered to a cubicle. The flexibility also accommodates special circumstances such as retention a good laborer in the event of a re-location. Not to mention the "road warrior" laborer who is never in the office, or would be great utilized if they didn't have to be physically there. Great instances of this are Associates that hire sales staff out of state or out of the country. They can still work as though they are sitting in the office!
There are Associates who still want those "roadies" to be in the office, or want to keep that personal association with their remote staff. Video conferencing has been available for use in this area, but in the last few years it's as a matter of fact come to be easy to passage it for the Smb. Costs were all the time the main prohibiting factor as the gear produced by Associates like Polycom and Tandberg were just too costly and required special telephone services. However, the explosion of high-speed Internet connectivity with cheap costs, as well as the advances in video technology, has made it inherent for even a small enterprise to host a video consulation that approximately looks like you are in the next room. Cisco dazzled enterprise customers with their TelePresence suites complete with high definition video and audio, but the costs were big for the main site. A top of the line factory clocked in around 0,000 not to mention the high-bandwidth connections that are also required, but Cisco, Microsoft, and others have created technology for the desktop with smaller cameras and "video phones." Applications like Cisco's WebEx, Microsoft's Unified Communicator, and Skype have given the Smb some great options. Clearly, the green impact of this technology is the lowering of voyage budgets for those Associates that felt the need to be in the room with their customers and prospects, and others that used to fly key personnel back to the home office for prominent meetings. The savings can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention with the rise in fuel costs fewer plane or auto trips and less carbon emissions.
Finally, think going paperless. Most Associates are still heavily reliant on customary fax machines, copiers, and file cabinets. Not only can you save money, but you can heighten document safety by implementing technologies such as Internet faxing and electronic backups. Internet faxing enables fax documents to be sent and received through email. There is no more "sneaker-net" or the reduced productivity of employees wandering to the fax machine and ending up hanging at the water cooler discussing who got kicked off American Idol! Sensitive fax transmissions are delivered right to the intended party and they are not sitting in the fax bin for everybody to see.
Electronic backups eliminate the need for old-style tape backups which are unreliable, wear out, and get lost. Near-real time backup of data are available and can come in handy when you've been working on a proposal all day and your machine suddenly shuts down. The daily backups of the past would not help you, but the new electronic backups automatically save most of your work and can recover data through easy point-and-click! Also, make policies that if you don't need to print it then don't, and add a line to your outgoing emails and electronic documents about "smart printing" to help educate your customers and clients too.
As you can see, there are a myriad of methods that can be employed to lessen your energy footprint and qualify you as a green business. Don't hesitate to get the word out that you have moved to these technologies. Showing your enterprise to be more responsible just lifts your public profile, and may garner you a new customer or two who never knew you existed! So, being green clearly is not only good for the environment, it's good for the bottom line!
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