Fareham
business helps reduce carbon emissions by a tonne in just one
night.
IT company Cobweb launches green business community with PC
Switch Off Evening
Fareham, 19 August 2008: Cobweb
Solutions, which provides outsourced IT services to fast-growing
businesses, has joined together with 58 customers to produce a
total energy saving equivalent to a tonne of carbon, in just one
night on 14th August. The CO2 saving is equivalent
to the emissions generated by ten passengers on a return flight
from London to Paris.
Cobweb persuaded over 58 customers to turn off
approximately 700 PCs as part of their PC Switch Off Evening.
If these companies switch off their PCs every evening from now on,
that would produce an annual saving of around 438 tonnes of carbon
– equivalent to over 21 full flights making the round trip from
London to Paris!
The PC Switch Off Evening marks the launch of
a new national green business community by Cobweb, who recently
achieved the ISO 14001 accreditation which recognises that a
company is managing its operational impacts on the
environment. Now, the green community aims to encourage small
and medium-sized businesses across the country to join together to
reduce their carbon footprint, with many more initiatives planned
for the future.
Sarah Hildyard from Cobweb Solutions, who organised the PC
Switch off evening comments:
“The manufacture,
distribution and use of IT equipment is responsible for around 2%
of total global carbon emissions – that’s on a par with the airline
industry. However, there are some real opportunities to limit
the environmental impact of IT. For example, industry sources
show that up to 60% of PCs are left on overnight. If we all
turned off our PCs overnight we could slash IT’s carbon emissions
in a single stroke.
As an IT company,
Cobweb believes it has a responsibility to lead the way by reducing
our own environmental impact. And by working with our
customers we can achieve even more. That is what our new green
community is about – collective action that makes a
difference.
With over one third of
IT departments likely to have one or more environmental criteria in
their top six buying criteria in 2010, it makes good business sense
too.”
The inspiration provided by Cobweb comes in
the form of many environmental initiatives, and it starts from the
inside. For example, to celebrate its ISO 14001 accreditation,
Cobweb’s staff were involved in a “Green Day” which took place on
the 15th of August. On this day, there were green
activities, such as no printing being allowed for the entire day,
and contributions like “grow your own greens” to raise internal
awareness for their staff to continue lowering their carbon
footprint.
Mark Davies, Information Security/ Quality
Manager for Cobweb commented on the success achieved:
“As a hosted IT
services provider, Cobweb works hard to keep our environmental
impact to a minimum. We also help our customers to reduce
their own environmental footprint by reducing the need to maintain
energy-hungry servers on their premises.
We were extremely
pleased to receive our ISO 14001 accreditation, but we do not
intend to rest on our laurels. We will continue to look at
reducing our own carbon footprint and encouraging our customers to
join us in a variety of green community initiatives.”
Participating Cobweb customers include J J
Browne & Son (Jewellers) Ltd, Whisky Castle Ltd, European
Nickel Plc, Rentokil Pest Control, Yellowtail Financial Planning
Limited, Max Resourcing Ltd, Thompsons Quantity Surveyors,
Tanglewood Clinic and the Down's Syndrome Association.
To read some further press coverage regarding the PC
switch off evening, please follow the links below.
Green/ Energy
IT
Business
Portals