On occasion of the World Environment Day, on June, the 5th2015, the ERGO Insurance Group launched the Bit-Away-Days, 15 days “to get rid” of needless data. The initiative calls about 43,000 employees from all over the ERGO world to contribute by deleting unnecessary data from their PCs. Indeed it is not unusual to find  in our PCs files that are saved twice or more, useless drafts, files that are outdated and not required to be archived. Yet exactly those unnecessary files use valuable storage space, which not only causes costs, but also consumes a lot of energy. The operations of the storage disks and  also for their cooling have effectively a direct impact on the use of energy.

The ERGO Bit-Away-Days are therefore an occasion to reflect on the energy consumption, often unconscious and involuntary, that we cause by simply saving or archiving files or emails instead of deleting it. Furthermore, the call for respecting the planet's resources and for the personal commitment in the reduction of wastes supported by the replacement of all the ERGO Italia’s old computers with the so called Virtual Desktop. It is a thin client, a small size hardware device, characterized by a few hardware components, with no fan, hard drive, floppy and CD-ROM, etc. Virtual Desktop decrease the space available in each machine from 200GB to 2GB, thus allowing significant energy savings. A terabyte of data consumes ca. 3,900 kwh in a year, which is broadly equivalent to almost 2.5 tons of CO2.

Technology has an important role in the control of environmental costs, but also a simple gesture which could be the individual elimination of data, unnecessary files or emails testify the respect for our planet and its resources.

Share

Youtube


"TRANSIZIONE PER L'AGENDA 2030
Video-racconto del quinto SDG Forum

Banner SOS 480x335