SusteIT’s first Newsletter August 2010 for Events, News and Publications Relating to Greener ICT in Universities and Colleges

This newsletter has been developed by the JISC funded SusteIT initiative in order to a) publicise the activities and outputs of our own projects (on greening scientific computing and conferencing/new ways of working) and others within JISC's Greening ICT programme, and b) to provide brief updates on other developments within the field. To obtain a copy or subscribe go to http://www.goodcampus.org/susteit/index.php or contact l.m.hopkinson@bradford.ac.uk
www.goodcampus.org

CcPrint & CcMail for Microsoft Exchange

CcPrint is a print capture product which intercepts printed output on the way to a printer, renders it to an image and automatically stores it in the document management system. The product can be configured in numerous ways and is capable to extracting information from the printed material and using that information to index the document. It is also capable of processing forms and extracting information from them.

CcMail for Microsoft Exchange is an email capture product which intercepts emails as they are sent or received and indexes them in to the document management system according to a user-defined set of rules which control the inclusion or exclusion of each email and how it is stored. Requires IMAP4 enabled Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.

Good Green IT Reading

You may not know that the IT industry is currently responsible for the same level of carbon emissions as the aviation industry, and experts predict that these emissions will actually double in the next few years. This is some great reading on the wider issues of why we should green IT (and the related printing output)

Green Computing and Green IT Best Practices on Regulations and Industry Initiatives, Virtualization, Power Management, Materials Recycling and Telecommuting

Green IT For Dummies

Green IT in Practice: How One Company Is Approaching the Greening of Its IT

Green IT: Reduce Your Information System's Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line

Green IT for Sustainable Business Practice: An ISEB Foundation Guide

How Paperless Home Offices Work

Inside this Article

1. Introduction to How Paperless Home Offices Work
2. Going Paperless
3. Paperless Technology

4. Paperless Document Management

http://home.howstuffworks.com/how-paperless-home-offices-work.htm

BUSINESS GUIDE TO PAPER REDUCTION

Lots of information and guidance on how to reduce paper and printing in this 67 page guide by the ForestEthics, published in in the USA in 2002

BUSINESS GUIDE TO PAPER REDUCTION

A Step-by-Step Plan to Save Money by Saving Paper

Including Case Studies of Bank of America, AT&T, Nike, Alameda County, and the Moore Foundation

Heather Sarantis

September 2002

http://www.environmentalpaper.org/documents/REDUCE-BUSINESS-GUIDE.pdf

Minimising the Environmental Impacts of Printing Workshop at UEL

Minimising the Environmental Impacts of Printing Workshop at UEL.

Nicola Hogan Sustainable ICT Project Manager, Environmental Association for Universities & Colleges (EAUC) said “ A special thank you to each of our speakers for their informative presentations and especially to Sara Kassam for hosting the workshop at UEL's Dockland's campus.”

Nicola Hogan has posted the presentations on the EAUC's website (see following link) so please feel free to visit the website anytime as a source of information for reducing paper use at your institution; http://www.eauc.org.uk/shop/mms_single_event.php?event_id=1254

Please log onto the EAUC's website for more updates on the sustainable ICT project.

The Environmental Effects of Printing

One of the interesting things about this project is that we are looking at communicating more of the environmental costs of printing to UEL staff.

Most people are aware of the destruction of forestry involved in traditional logging operations.  Up to 42% percent of the global wood harvest goes to the paper and pulp industry (Abromovitz and Mattoon, Worldwatch Paper: Paper Cuts, p. 20, 1999).  UEL has already taken a great proactive step in using recycled paper across the campus which significantly reducing the number of trees required to be harvested.  This means less pressure on forests and the species which rely on them.

What people are less aware of are the other environmental effects of the paper and pulp industry has.

Paper production is a large consumer of water, due to soaking of the pulp fibers.  In OECD countries the industry was the single largest industrial consumer of water (OECD Environmental Outlook, p. 218)  The waste water then has a variety of chemicals in it, and this takes further processing to remove, not all of it can be and different countries have different levels of environmental legislation controlling this.

Paper and pulp production is also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, being the third greatest industrial greenhouse gas emitter in the OECD (OECD Environmental Outlook, p. 218).  This is not including energy use in the running the printers.  Much of the energy used running printers is as they are sitting idle overnight, on weekends and holidays.  Even those which go into standby can still consume a significant amount, and not all do.  Xerox estimated printers were only in use 1-2% of the time.

Then we come to the manufacturing and disposal of printers.  Much of the energy a printer will ever use has been expended in its manufacture.  A range of substances are mined and extracted in its complex machinery, including substances from places in developing countries which don't always have good environmental or labour standards.  They are then transported large distances due to the globalised manufacturing process.  There are also problems with the model of production, especially cheap desktops, where due to the main revenue being from cartridge sales, the printers are priced at disposable levels, making repair much less cost effective than replacement.  Many go to land fill eventually, contributing to a global e-waste problem the UN described as a "mountain of e-waste", much of it ending up being disposed of in the third world, often with a complete absence of environmental or labour concerns.


Hundreds of millions of printer cartridges are purchased every year, and less than half of the cartridges themselves are reused or recycled (Infotrends 2009).  Even those that are returned to refilling depots are often not economically viable to refill and end up in land fill.  The cartridges themselves also use a range of chemicals in their manufacture, which leach out into the environment if not disposed of properly.  They also contribute to the worlds growing e-waste problem.

There are other aspects as well, pollution, paper packaging, transport, toxics from ink and toner, all of which need to be considered.   Taken together, if we can print less, print double sided or two to a page more often, share a printer with colleagues, use more environmentally sensitive paper and print equipment, we can reduce our ecological footprint, without effecting our quality of life.

Like many aspects of our lives, there are complex environmental consequences to our printing behaviours we need to consider in our actions.  The project to make printing more environmentally friendly at UEL will have positive benefits on our environment, far beyond UELs campuses.   This is why as an environmental charity Global Action Plan is happy to be involved in helping UEL take this important initiative.