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E.ON powers down to cut carbon and costs
Energy giant tries greening its office business...

By Natasha Lomas

Published: Friday 25 April 2008

Although it may sound counter-intuitive, energy giant E.ON has been setting its sights on reducing the power consumption of its non-energy generating business.

Its goal is to shrink its corporate carbon emissions, and save money on operational costs in the process.

Green IT from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more...

A is for Abroad
B is for Blades
C is for Carbon footprint
D is for Data centres
E is for Energy sources
F is for Freecycle
G is for Government
H is for Homeworking
I is for Ice caps
J is for Jobs (Steve)
K is for Kilowatts
L is for Landfill
M is for Mercury
N is for Nanogeneration
O is for Offsetting
P is for Paperless office
Q is for Queen
R is for Recycling
S is for SmartPlanet.com
T is for Travel
U is for Upgrade
V is for Virtualisation
W is for WEEE
X is for Xmas
Y is for You
Z is for Zero emissions

Speaking at Gartner's Enterprise Networking & Communications Summit in London, John Middleditch, CTO of energy company E.ON UK, explained that going green doesn't have to be mind-bendingly complicated - at least not initially.

By looking in "the most obvious places" - and asking some simple questions - Middleditch said E.ON was able to identify carbon reduction "quick wins". The obvious areas - at least outside of its non-power generating business - were its buildings (covering things like heating, lighting, computer equipment etc) and its corporate travel.

On conducting a green audit, Middleditch stressed the importance of asking whether the impact of each area can be measured - from a cost and carbon point of view.

He said: "It's no good saying, well, I'd really like to tackle this area and then realising after that you've got no plan to measure where you are now or where you will be after [making a change]… You really need to make sure first of all, can I measure this? And then you've got to ask yourself… is it going to cost me more than I'm going to save?... And ask yourself how difficult is this - is it going to be practical? It's not rocket science."

Asking such questions helped E.ON narrow a long list of possible targets to a short list of carbon quick wins. But Middleditch said companies seeking to shrink their carbon footprint should not worry about being too fastidious about measuring every last drop of power consumed. He warned: "Don't be too bureaucratic. Making a reduction is more important than measuring the Nth degree."

E.ON used simple formulae to calculate the energy cost and carbon emissions of its PC estate and corporate travel - such as: PC power consumption x number of PCs x time on x emissions per kWh.

To cut the power consumption of its IT kit, Middleditch said the company looked at ways it could reduce the time the equipment was left on. By ensuring that monitors power down after a few minutes left idle, and by installing software to power down PC base units in the evening, he said the company was able to make savings of around 1,000 tonnes of CO2 last year, along with £140,000 in electricity costs.

Care was needed in implementing these changes at its call centre as IT has the potential to have a very noticeable impact on productivity in that environment. He also warned of the need to get the business on side - by persuading, cajoling and communicating plans to them, rather than taking a dictatorial, enforcement approach.

He said: "Any initiatives… have got to be done in partnership with the business. That doesn't mean ringing up some guy who's a manager in the call centre and saying 'we're about to deploy this tomorrow, is that going to be OK'? It means right from the very beginning you've got to explore with the business, is this doable, is this viable, what's going to be the impact?

"In other words these changes need to be business led and not something the IT guys are doing."

In order to cut emissions caused by its corporate travel E.ON implemented online meeting tools such as Microsoft LiveMeeting and WebEx. It also ramped up its use of videoconferencing, initially by making the experience more user-friendly. Or tackling "some of the barriers to using those kinds of systems" - by standardising equipment, providing much clearer instructions for use and offering what Middleditch dubbed "a kind of valet service" to help users get going.

The company car list also got a makeover with the most polluting vehicles struck off.

Its combined efforts in tackling corporate travel meant the company was able to reduce CO2 emissions by around 500 tonnes and make savings of about £120,000 last year.

However, despite its best efforts, Middleditch conceded E.ON's air mileage went up last year - because it is part of an international group he said it is increasingly encouraged to participate in group-wide initiatives. Its total energy consumption also increased slightly, owing to acquisitions adding more offices to its real estate portfolio. "It's not all good news," he conceded.

Green initiatives in the pipeline at E.ON include more investment in videoconferencing. Middleditch said it is looking at deploying a mix of different solutions - from "webcam type stuff" right up to the high end 'telepresence' style systems for boardroom level conferences. "Different types of videoconferencing apply to different situations," he said, adding that the board would be getting Cisco's TelePresence system in the next few weeks.

Another area it is investigating is whether it can reduce the total number of buildings it owns by increasing home and mobile working - though he said there are complex issues to consider here, such as ensuring the health and safety of workers outside the office.

It is also looking at adding green generating capabilities to its offices and its HQ will be getting a solar array, said Middleditch. Desktop PC virtualisation is another area it is exploring.

Middleditch added: "The next thing is looking beyond the obvious… We're going to increasingly have to shine some torches into dark corners."