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29 Feb 2008

E-government is greener, study shows

Peter Blair from DCLG writes to say

I just wanted to draw everyone’s attention to a study report published by my department in the UK last month, which shows that encouraging more citizens to carry out business with Government online helps to reduce carbon emissions from service delivery operations - far outweighing any negative impact from increased IT server capacity.

The report is a world-first in e-government terms, in that it focuses attention on quantitative carbon reduction, rather than fashionable ‘green-washing’ about environmental performance. Not least, increasing citizen understanding of carbon emissions demands the communication of real ‘green’ facts.

Identifying new areas where CO2 emissions can be reduced is also a democratic concept. To paraphrase a recent statement by the UK Environment Secretary, David Miliband, “A ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the delivery of government services is as threatening as a ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the aviation industry”.

The report is also actively influencing current UK debate around ‘Green IT’ amongst IT managers in local government, away from a passive stance whereby the IT profession is portrayed as “a bad CO2 polluter which can get better”, towards a proactive stance of “you’re not green unless e-business is a corporate priority”.

A copy of the full report can be downloaded free of charge at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/localgo…

What do others think of these findings? Will this world-first quantitative study help in reappraising the position of e-government within the green agenda?

Many thanks Peter; I missed that, and it seems very pertinent.

The press release is here.

• Posted by William Heath on 29/02/08 at 3:37pm
• Categories · Greener government IT
• Comments (2)  Permalink

Ideal Government

Let's say what we want from e-enabled government. Let's observe government first-hand. Let's say "Wouldn't It Be Better If" (WIBBI). Become an ethnographer of bureaucracy today! It beats getting frustrated with public services.

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