IT's role in sustainability on campus

But did you know we’re also taking steps to make the University more sustainable and reduce carbon emissions?

So far we have: 

• Reduced the number of multifunction printers on campus by 40%, saving an estimated 3.03 tonnes of CO2e per year! We’ve done this by encouraging staff and students to use alternatives to printing where they can, and teaching them how to avoid spoiled prints. 
• Saved 44.1 metric tonnes of IT equipment from landfill so far by either recycling or refurbishing more than 4,500 unwanted devices.
• Saved an estimated 18.8 tonnes in CO2 and over £25,000 in energy costs by creating a process which shuts down equipment in PC classrooms when they’re not being used during vacations.
• By thoroughly auditing our data centres, we’ve managed to reduce the power used in them by 12.6%, that’s the equivalent to what is used by 40 UK households over a year.
• Moved our high performance compute facility Viking to a data centre which runs on 100% renewable energy.
• Added the Ecosia search engine to all classroom PCs. Ecosia uses 100% of their profits towards projects for climate action.
• Limited the hardware (laptops, desktops, PC etc) we have available so we’re better able to complete repairs in-house and don’t need to replace them unnecessarily.

Want to find out more about these steps? More information can be found on our dedicated Sustainable IT webpage.