Page 4265 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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virtualisation. This is a good idea. It is something which the Greens strongly support, but we would like to see efforts happening with the desktop as well as at the back end. I am sure someone in the government is aware of thin clients. They may be aware—or they should be aware, because this was one of the recommendations of the estimates committee—that the department of environment have trialled thin clients, or desktop virtualisation. In the trial, which covered 22 staff over five weeks, they identified energy savings of 83 per cent compared to the traditional PC model, even after the requirement for additional service was taken into account. That comes from the ANAO, the audit office.
I would like us to look at that as an option. The other plus with thin clients is that, because the major grunt is provided by the service, the thin client should be able to stay in use for a lot longer than a PC which may become outdated. The thin client will not become outdated. It is merely a matter of updating the software in the servers.
Another thing that I would like to see InTACT do is not continue to discourage the use of laptops. As members who have looked at getting laptops would be aware, InTACT charges more for laptops than it does for desktops. While five or six years ago that might have reflected accurately the fact that laptops did not last as long, laptops these days are lasting longer. They certainly use less energy and fewer resources. I would like to see InTACT look at its pricing and stop discouraging the use of laptops.
I hope that the draft ICT sustainability plan will commit to common procurement standards with the commonwealth government. The commonwealth government has already committed to compliance with ISO 14024 or ISO 14021, and it has also committed to the EPEAT silver level or energy star as the minimum energy standard for the relevant ICT equipment. I would like to see us being consistent with the good work of the commonwealth.
We have all talked about the quick wins paper. I am very pleased that many of the suggestions have been looked at. One thing that has not been looked at in the quick wins paper is around telecommuting and teleconferencing. In fact, the quick wins paper talks about introducing a carbon calculator for meeting scheduling. I have been told that a six-hour video conference between Canberra and somewhere else in Australia produces about five kilograms of CO2 emissions per person. That is actually more than I expected. The equivalent of taking that person to Sydney or Melbourne is in the hundreds of kilograms. It is a lot more. As a government and as a community we should start looking at doing more videoconferencing and having more video attendance at Pacific conferences as well.
Two weeks ago I attended a conference in Melbourne from my computer here in Canberra. It was on the screen and there was a chat space where the interstate participants could ask questions at the end. It was quite good because it was on a Friday and a Saturday and on the Saturday I was able to attend it from home and have my morning tea when I felt like having my morning tea. It is something that really can work. It is an area in which IT can expedite real green alternatives. We can reduce some of our carbon footprint by using IT.
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