Going Green to Save Green
By Thomas J Gravina Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder, Evolve IP

I realize that going green was a little more cache in a good economy, but there is no question that most businesses are more in tune to their eco-footprint these days then they have ever been.   Hosted services may be one avenue to enable business owners to go green while saving green.

The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of any technology solution includes many things from the cost of equipment and software, to annual maintenance fees, carrier or service provider fees and support from external or internal staff.   Most business owners have a tendency to overlook the cost of the power and environmentals (like cooling) needed to support on-site equipment.

Powering On Site Equipment
Your onsite phone system requires power for 1 server, the PBX Shelf / Cabinet, and power per user.   In a typical 24 user business, this can calculate to roughly 700 watts of power.   With a typical on-site PBX, the business is generally supporting multiple networks (for voice and data) which require different equipment (routers, CSU/DSU, channel banks) to function, each additional device can generate 30-500 watts of power.   Each on-site server used for file sharing or email can generate an additional 500 watts of power.  

Keeping It Cool
Powering your equipment is not the only concern.  Air conditioning for the server room or telecom closet requires power and increases CO2 emissions.    Most offices were not built to function as a data center.   In fact, in most offices, servers and PBXs are pushed in to small closets not designed for heat dissipation.    Cooling these rooms requires more cooling than you generally need per square foot.    According to a recent Gartner report, 70 percent of CIOs are reporting that power and/or cooling issues are now their single largest problem in data centers.

Moving it Off-Site
Moving services like PBXs and servers off-site reduces the power and cooling requirements at your office significantly.   You may be thinking, “aren’t I just moving all of that power and cooling to the service provider?”           Of course you are.  However, as has been previously detailed in this column, a hosted service provider is built for    the multi-tenant environment.   Services are “virtualized” onto large servers and equipment that service multiple customers, reducing power consumption and cooling need per end user.   Some experts estimate that power consumption per employee can be reduced by upwards of 65-70%.    

Technology is not Bio-degradable
It sounds like an obvious conclusion, but don’t underestimate what it means to the environment.   The next server or PBX that you buy will eventually end up in a landfill.   Made up of primarily metal and plastic, it will never degrade.   Worse yet, computer equipment also contains other hazardous materials, including mercury, cadmium (a known carcinogen), and hexavalent chromium (shown to cause high blood pressure, iron-poor blood, liver disease, and nerve and brain damage in animals).   Disposing of the equipment poses a risk to groundwater and soil quality and may ultimately end up in your food or drinking water.    A hosted service prevents you from having to buy or upgrade that equipment in the first place.   And, as detailed above, the service provider generally does not have to purchase additional equipment as well due to the multi-tenant nature of their platforms.

The Environment may become a Regulatory Issue
Everyone agrees that being responsible towards the environment is the right thing to do, and certainly no business owner would turn away from reduced costs in outsourcing services, however, reducing your carbon footprint may soon become a legal requirement for many businesses.   In fact, many manufacturing businesses are already given incentives to do the right thing for the environment and already receive and trade energy credits based on their carbon footprint.
A carbon footprint is “the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product” (UK Carbon Trust 2008).    Power and cooling use figure into your organization’s carbon footprint.    
Hosted services push the responsibility to manage the carbon footprint of the business’ technology to the service provider and reduce the on-site carbon footprint.

Environmentally Conscious and Cost Effective
For the most part, going “green” has meant additional expenses to the business. Rarely are there situations where environmental responsibility and potential cost savings collide.    Hosted solutions offer businesses a unique opportunity to respect the environment, increase productivity and, potentially, save some green.