Px3 analyses the ICT carbon footprint for the UK’s MoD
Further to the development of new ICT carbon footprint analysis techniques conceived and pioneered by Dr. Sutton-Parker with the University of Warwick, Px3 was engaged by the Ministry of Defence to calculate operational ICT GHG emissions.
“Px3 undertook a carbon footprint assessment of the IT operations of the MoD for Defence Digital in an independent consultancy exercise which covered data centres, end user computing devices and other ICT equipment such as phones, printers / imaging devices. The report produced identified the GHG emissions and also provided a benchmark against the MoD’s own reporting. More than half of the GHG emissions from IT equipment was identified as being caused by the operation of on-premise data centres. In total the report found that IT at the MoD is currently producing over 100,000 metric tons of GHG emissions annually and that a mature forest of over 120,000 acres (an area larger than the Isle of Wight) would be required to remove this amount of pollution from the atmosphere.”
Grant Morley, MSc MBA Defence Digital, Strategic Command, Directorate Strategy and Military Digitisation-Strategy and Planning-Sustainability Policy
Moving forward, the department will utilise the new data to support strategies within the national Greening Government ICT policy. Additionally, Px3’s unique end user device carbon footprint comparison application has been adopted by the MoD to enable selection of new computers with a low environmental impact.