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BT has been a leader in sustainability efforts for years. We’ve set aggressive goals and we’ve met them. But we all still have a lot to do. We believe sustainability is about more than saving the environment; it’s about helping to create a sustainable world.
As a global communications and information technology company we are in a unique position to both influence large organizations through our work and to share our experiences and insight with anyone who will listen. The resources and stories here aim to do just that.
Learn more about BT’s Sustainability contribution.
Harnessing sustainability for profit: the bottom line on sustainability
“Without a mechanism that unites environmental, country, society and stockholders, any talk of sustainability is mere lip service,” says Kook Hyun Moon, CEO of Yuhan Kimberly, a South Korean healthcare and hygiene products maker. And this seems to be precisely the problem with many companies’ sustainability efforts today. While sustainability has made its way onto the agenda, it is too often guided by regulation or the need to respond to immediate vulnerabilities.
So, how many businesses today go beyond talk? And do corporate boards believe sustainability programmes can have a positive effect on the bottom line? BT and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) asked these questions in a new study entitled Action or Aspiration? Sustainability in the Workplace.
The findings
The EIU survey revealed that many executives are not ready to view sustainability as part of an overarching strategy for success. Almost half (46 per cent) said that sustainability programmes helped improve brand value, but only 20 per cent felt that sustainability programmes could improve profitability. Almost one-third admitted that their company’s sustainability efforts focus on communication, rather than actual change.
For some companies, not understanding the potential of sustainability as a comprehensive business strategy can be far worse than just a missed opportunity. Type “greenwashing” into any search engine to see examples of companies that have had their reputations irreparably damaged by the practice of “jumping on the sustainability bandwagon” solely as a marketing tool.
The case for Sustainability
That a majority of executives see sustainability goals as inherently at odds with profitability should come as no great surprise. Programmes for activities such as reducing a company’s carbon footprint often originate in the form of mandates. But as more and more companies are discovering, many goals associated with sustainability actually save, or make money.
Take flexible working, for example, which can have a profound effect on emissions by reducing travel while providing cost savings in terms of office resources. Or who could argue that getting employees to turn off their computers at night doesn’t positively influence both emissions and costs?
”The link between sustainability and commercial success is, without doubt, becoming clearer all the time,” say’s Francois Barrault, CEO, BT Global Services. “Our own sustainability performance is helping us win deals, create new offerings and build enthusiasm amongst our workforce.”
Pull quotes:
”The link between sustainability and commercial success is, without doubt, becoming clearer all the time…”
– Francois Barrault, CEO, BT Global Services
The way to sustainability
While it’s certain that every company must define and approach sustainability goals in its own way, some lessons can be applied to help get organisations on the right path:
• The board and CEO must give sustainability goals their full support.
• Goals must be built into annual reporting and gain shareholder approval.
• Policies need to be embedded into day-to-day business practices across the enterprise.
• Must have a transparent means of gauging success.
Action or Aspiration? Sustainability in the Workplace
The study surveyed 1,200 senior executives across Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Twenty nine per cent of the respondents are CEOs. Fifty three per cent of those surveyed are from companies with an annual turnover in excess of $500 million.
Sustainability defined
The UK government-commissioned Stern Report in 2006 firmly established that sustainability is not just about environmental issues, but has three main elements: environmental, social and economic.
• Environmental sustainability covers a range of areas all aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of an organisation.
• Economic sustainability refers to business practices that help an organisation continue to prosper.
• Social sustainability refers to organisations contributing to the development of the organisations they affect.
High impact
"To provide some sense of scale, BT’s data centres, the largest in
Europe, use close to 0.7% of the total power output for Great
Britain. With that high level of impact on the grid, and the bottom
line, countries and companies that want to reach their sustainability goals while continuing to grow need to address this issue. Or, perhaps more to the point, companies that hope to grow need to set and reach sustainability goals. "
"Forces that contribute to the rising IT power bill include increased computer usage, “always-on” connectivity, dual-core processing, and a growing number of applications vital to the workplace and
everyday life. “We’re under tremendous pressure to increase capacity,” say’s O’Donnell. And while collaborative technologies that enable telecommuting and conferencing save tremendous amounts of power by reducing travel, IT services still need to be made as efficient as possible."
"“We want the market to follow
us, and reduce the global carbon
footprint for IT services.”
- Steve O’Donnell"
"Typical 2,000 square metre data centre
Uses 8 megawatts"
"BT 21C data centre of same size
Uses 3.2 megawatts"
Inefficient by nature
Now if a charitable organisation asked you to make a cash donation and then said only 7% of your contribution would make its way to the people who need it, you’d probably find that an unacceptable level of efficiency. Still, that’s what goes on in the typical data centre. Half of the power consumed goes to cooling alone, 7% gets lost in the national grid, and between 25% and 40% vanishes during AC to DC conversion – leaving only that 7% actually powering the servers. The good news is that with such low levels of efficiency to begin with, there’s plenty of room for improvement. “What we need,” O’Donnell tells us, “are engineering solutions.” Here’s how BT does it.
Fresh air cooling
The traditional formula for computer cooling is that for every 1 kilowatt used to actually run a computer, you need 1.2 kilowatts of power to cool it. With fresh air cooling as pioneered by BT, refrigeration becomes unnecessary for a majority of the year, reducing those costs by approximately 85%. BT also runs its servers hotter, extending parameters to between 5 and 40 degrees Celsius, further reducing cooling costs. Presently, BT has 107 data centre sites using fresh air cooling as well as 5600 telephone exchanges.
AC/DC: Back in the black
Conventional data centres use alternating current at high voltage: taking AC from the grid, converting it to DC – in often cheaply made and inefficient hardware – and losing 25-40% of the power in the process. BT has learned to deliver DC power straight to computers, at much lower voltages. “Most DC powered data centres use 300 or more volts, which can actually kill someone if they make a mistake,” warns O’Donnell. But by using low voltage DC power in our “Metro-Nodes,” we are able to cut power consumption by 40%. Computers powered directly by DC are also more reliable, produce less heat and can be stacked closer together.
In the real world
All of the technology and engineering wizardry we’ve discussed so far, while considered cutting-edge, is well-tested and proven in the real world. BT, today, has thousands of fresh-air-cooled and DC-supplied technical suites in operation around the globe. Reliability statistics for these centres are higher than Uptime Institute’s Tier 4 (the global standard for data centre operations) reference model, costs are down, and there have been no longevity issues operating at higher temperatures.
The next generation
BT has met its promise to reduce power consumption by 60% from 1996 to 2006. Our next goal is to get that number to 80% by 2016. To begin that journey, Steve O’Donnell and his team are looking at improving CPU utilisation through enhanced virtualisation, and taking a more holistic approach to data centre design. As the first European company to join Greengrid.org, BT is particularly interested in helping guide the IT market towards improved energy efficiency. Organisations that invest in making their data centres more efficient will not only save on overall expenses, but benefit from social and customer goodwill increasingly associated with real progress towards sustainability.
"“Most DC powered data centres
use 300 or more volts, which
can actually kill someone if they
make a mistake…”
- Steve O’Donnell"
