Computers Off spreads the green message

Tech companies are switching off computers and putting on their ‘green hat’ as part of the successful Computers Off Australia (COA) campaign.

Founded by an Australian, Mark Winter, COA has taken off in New Zealand and the UK with business and governments adopting sustainable practices to reduce the IT carbon footprint.

The campaign includes a labeling scheme that classifies organisations using three colour-coded ticks according to their level of C02 emissions. Organisations can be classified as Power Management (Green tick), Virtualisation (Blue tick) and Carbon Neutral (Gold tick).

The scheme is designed to help the industry identify organisations that are doing their part to lower power consumption and reduce CO2 emissions.

Australia and New Zealand 1E’s distributor, AH Technology has been certified under the COA Green IT labeling initiative.

“AH Technology has raised their hand as not only distributing a number of eco-friendly technologies, but they are also taking action and have implemented internal green IT policies that comply with the COA certification,” Winter said in a statement.

“We see that besides AH Technology, there are many other vendors and organisations that still need to step up to the challenges of Green IT and certify to show their real commitment to the environment,” he said.

According to AH Technology Managing Director Amir Har-el, green IT is as much about the financial motivation as it is about reducing the environmental impact of operating IT and the business.

Also taking on the green IT challenge is the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom.

The OGC has launched a new campaign designed get public sector workers do more to decrease energy consumption and reduce the environmental footprint of government departments.

As part of the campaign, the OGC is backing Nightwatchman, software that monitors daily PC consumption and allows for the automatic shutdown of PCs at the end of the day.

The OGC estimates that by switching off PCs it could save energy costs of up to £10.2m.

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