Supporting a more sustainable University
7 January 2011
The University-wide Sustainability Week during November provided INSRV with the opportunity to re-commit to promoting more environmentally friendly, and time- and money-saving ways of working for all our users.
We aim to help our users reduce their environmental impact, whilst ensuring that we consider sustainability in everything that we do.
- The University's videoconferencing suites reduce the need for business travel, as meetings can be held between people across the globe. In the last academic year (2009 – 2010), over 390 videconferences took place in the INSRV-supported suites – an average of 33 per month.
- The relaunched Cardiff Portal enables students and staff to access their emails and files from anywhere in the world, making it easier to share and access electronic files and therefore reducing need for printing.
- INSRV's PC power-saving initiative, which automatically powers down University PCs, 15 minutes after they are logged out, has been extended to more users of the newer INSRV Windows XP images. The system saves a conservative estimate of £100,000 per year in energy costs and saves around 500 tonnes of CO2 per year.
- Most printers located in our libraries now offer duplex printing, reducing paper usage.
- INSRV also supports Fairtrade through our BS6008 and Arts and Social Studies Library Tea Clubs. These clubs provide Fairtrade, organic, and, where possible, locally sourced drinks for a monthly subscription. The central BS6008 Tea Club has been running since March 2006, providing ethical teas, coffee, sugar, milk, hot chocolate and cold drinks to members and guests to Tea Club locations.
- The Planet Filestore project has demonstrated the potential to improve the environmental and cost performance of institutional IT filestore.
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