Green IT And More (Part III) – Greening Your Organisation

David Tebbut, posted by,

In the third of a series of articles, David Tebbutt explains how IT can help companies become greener by using computers to reduce emissions and other undesirable effects outside of IT


Taking Bigger Strides

You don’t have to be an office-based business to apply technology to greening your activities. Remote monitoring sensors, for example, make it possible to keep an electronic eye on remote locations such as farmland, storage tanks and reservoirs, reducing the need to travel there to take readings. Many industries already use these capabilities to monitor tunnels and pipelines all over the world. Even drinks dispensers can be hooked up, ensuring that no service or refill journeys are wasted trips.

The potential of IT to help you manage your environmental risks is significant and limited only by your imagination.

Ask yourself these questions:

  • Can IT help me reduce my CO2 emissions?
  • Can I substitute a physical process flow with a digital one?
  • Can I use IT to enable greater awareness and control of my environmental impact?

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Making waves after the drought: Smart Operational Agriculture toolKit (SOAK)

Four university students won an international software innovation prize for SOAK, an agriculture toolkit designed to conserve water and increase crop production. It was partly inspired by the 59 per cent fall in crop yields in Australia during the drought conditions of 2007.

The software amalgamates information from weather forecasts and sensors which detect ground moisture, water supply levels, rainfall, wind speed and temperature. This data is then used to fine-tune the irrigation system to ensure that the crops get just the water they need.

Farmers monitor their entire farms through a web-based control panel that combines Microsoft Virtual Earth displays with statistical information that’s displayed on a PC or PDA. SMS messages are sent automatically to alert farm managers of any urgent problems.

Armed with information, computer software can help you optimise all manner of things, from building management, factory operations and product design. By metering, monitoring, analysing and reporting energy and process flows, you can identify where best to focus remedial efforts.

This article is part of a series of articles produced by Freeform Dynamics analyst David Tebbutt, together with Martin Atherton and Tony Lock.