Sustainability in Information Technology

Sustainability Liaison: Stan Johnson

Studies show that the best way to save money in IT is to reduce energy consumption, scale back on our need for additional materials or capacity and recycle and reuse what we have. These practices also have the effect of minimizing the negative impact of our day to day operations on the environment. Below is a summary of existing practices the County is already benefiting from. In the future we will look to improve what is already working and evaluate additional practices that could further increase our savings.

The outstanding money and energy savers (in order of savings) are:

  • Virtualization of County Servers: Virtualization is the process of running multiple "virtual" servers on one single physical Host. Typically 4-12 physical servers can be replaced with one more energy efficient "Host" server. This also greatly reduces the space and air conditioning needed. The County virtualized 51 servers last year.
  • Power Management of PCs, Laptops, Monitors and printers: Through judicially replacing older hardware with more energy efficient models and utilizing power management tools.
  • Consolidation of County Servers: The County is moving data from department servers to centralized mass shared storage and removing obsolete or duplicate data. We retired 65 servers last year.
  • Print Management: The County is defaulting printers to draft quality black ink and duplexing printing.
  • Management of Large Print Jobs: The County manages large print jobs with a software that allow us to not print additional copies for County staff. Examples: County tax bills (400,000 bills annually), Pet violation ( 60,000 notices annually), DCJ's weekly warrants (26,000 warrants annually)

Paper Reduction in DCM

We reduced our paper consumption by 7% since FY2008! This saved the department over $1,500 in avoided paper purchases last year.

We have also increased the amount of paper we purchase made with 100% recycled content. Buying 100% recycled paper saves:

  • 60-70% energy savings over virgin pulp
  • uses 55% less water
  • reduces water pollution by 35%
  • reduces air pollution by 74%
  • eliminates many toxic pollutants

Multnomah County Sustainability Liaisons coordinate sustainability efforts in their departments by acting as resources and advocates. Please contact them if you have questions, suggestions or would like to get involved.

Resources