Green Government, Policy

Queensland ICT Industry Launches Green Initiatives

By Alice Kok | 2 October 2008

More than 170 Information Technology leaders from government and business participated in the launch of a new Green IT Industry Special Interest Group (SIG) and Taskforce in Brisbane to help the ICT industry move from discussion on Green IT to action and best practice.

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The Taskforce’s membership comprises of senior managers from the Queensland Government, Brisbane City Council and the IT Industry. It was set up to support the SIG, who will assist the IT industry and major IT users to adapt to the changing business landscape that climate change and carbon accounting have created, and coordinate the activities of government and the IT industry to maximize their value and effectiveness.

One of the organisation’s early and most significant initiatives will be to identify the options for developing an accreditation scheme for Green IT Practitioners.

Nick Tate Chair of Australian Computer Society (ACS) Queensland said reporting carbon emissions is now a reality in Australia with the Federal Government’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act (NGER Act) having taken effect from 1 July 2008 with initially more than 400 leading companies required to comply.

“Last year, the ACS has revealed that ICT use by Australian businesses generated 7.94 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005. We believe that Carbon Accounting, which records and reports carbon emissions, is becoming a normal part of business accounting with Australia’s Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme planned to start in 2010,” said Tate.

The Green IT Industry Taskforce interim chair and ICT Industry Workgroup Executive Officer, Paul Campbell said many perceived that the NGER Act and Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme only affected the large carbon emitters, however many smaller companies – regardless of their size – who provided services to these large companies would be caught up in these schemes.

“The larger business community will also be affected as the real cost of carbon emission is passed on through increased pricing in goods and services,” said Campbell.

“As what we have recommended when we released our Audit Report, we believe that Australian’s adoption of Green IT practices will make a significant contribution to reducing our carbon emissions,” said Tate said. “We hope that these new Queensland industry initiatives will be a role model for the rest of Australia.”