INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology
Technology leaders take a look at common IT practices that negatively impact the environment
Nexthink , a leader in Digital Employee Experience ( DEX ) management software , has released its Quantifying E-Waste In Corporate IT Report , which proves cutting back on environmental waste and creating a more sustainable future can be achieved by eliminating common bad IT habits and better monitoring of device health .
Nexthink ’ s customers are at the forefront of creating a more sustainable future and adopting a digital sobriety mindset . Because of this , they welcomed the opportunity to reduce CO 2 emissions and waste across their organization , which Nexthink identified during the first few weeks of the partnership . This report focused on that data collected during the first weeks of Nexthink ’ s implementation from 3.5 million anonymized devices to study how IT leaders everywhere can reduce their organization ’ s environmental footprint and costs while improving employee experience .
The pertinent lessons from the report include :
1 . Don ’ t automatically refresh every device . Only replace and pay for what you need to . The report calls attention to a common trend among enterprises of replacing hardware every few years , regardless of useability . Nexthink ’ s research found that 20 % of devices were still performing and didn ’ t require replacement . And of the 80 % that did have a low performance score , only 2 % were unsalvageable while the remaining 98 % were fixable with a simple RAM upgrade or by optimizing start-up performance . Companies that are opting to focus on these small fixes are saving millions and helping to address the global e-waste problem .
2 . Examine and improve computers ’ start-up time by checking the applications installed and upgrading old devices . Shockingly , devices that take longer than five minutes to load , produce more than 450 tons of CO 2 emissions per year – that ’ s the equivalent of 50,636 gallons of gasoline . This waste can be prevented with better visibility into the health of employee devices , a clear understanding of user habits and by taking a more proactive approach to common IT issues .
3 . Educate employees on green computing habits and create two-way communication channels between the IT team and employees . A lack of understanding of employee computing habits leads to a higher emissions output and slower computing speeds . The research exposed that collectively , gaming , personal communication and media streaming apps generate 33 tons of
CO 2 emissions per year . To put that in perspective , it would take 300 trees a full year to absorb those emissions , based on the sample . IT Leaders have the potential to help their organizations reduce a minimum of 695kgs of CO 2 emissions per week simply by educating workers about smart computing habits and by eliminating applications that are heavy emitters . p
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