Irwin Mitchell
Irwin Mitchell is an international law firm with seven offices throughout the UK and two in Spain, with a PC estate of approximately 2,500 computers. They decided to look at their computer usage as a way to make energy savings.
Irwin Mitchell strives for a strong green track record, both in terms of advising clients and managing its own operations. As a firm we started to look at our computers as a possible area where we could make significant energy savings. Studies show that PCs and monitors use as much as 14 percent of all power consumed in office environments and ICT generally being comparable to the aviation industry with regard to CO2 emissions.
As a quick win, all PC monitors were changed from CRT to TFT flat screens. Typically a 17” CRT will use 50 – 70W in an operational state in comparison to 20 – 25W for a TFT. In power saving mode a CRT will still consume approximately 40W compared to 1W for a TFT.
The IT team then channelled their efforts into maximising the efficiency of desktop computers. The team realised that many desktops were often left on for long periods of time when not being used, e.g. during long meetings or even overnight, which caused concern about energy efficiency both from a cost and environmental point of view. After much analysis the team settled on a product called Verdiem Surveyor and became the first organisation in the UK to deploy this.
This pioneering system allowed our IT team to control the efficiency of all 2,500 PCs from a central location.
The software was deployed as a pilot and power consumption benchmarked to get a starting position. These reports were then used to fine tune PC state by putting monitors into a sleep state (and thereby capitalising on the efficiencies of the new TFT screens) and the pc in hibernation mode during periods of inactivity. The software was also able to technically enforce all pcs being shut down at the end of the working day. Using this data, thresholds were defined and the software deployed to the entire firm.
As a result of the deployment, we have been able to reduce energy consumption by 34%. This equates to an average saving of 250,440 kWh of electricity and about 107,686 kilograms of CO2 across Irwin Mitchell’s PC network annually. These metrics are constantly reviewed to see if further savings can be realised.