For immediate release
MEDIA RELEASE

Australian Green IT initiative can resolve the federal governments funding crisis with the states around the Digital Education Revolution

SYDNEY – Monday 29 September, 2008 – The not-for-profit ‘Computers Off’ campaign and labeling initiative, today announced that they have a solution to resolve the federal governments funding crisis with the states around the implementation and ongoing costs of the Digital Education Revolution.

According to Mark Winter, Founder of Computers Off, “states can save upwards of 50%-70% off their PC power consumption, that in turn saves money and CO2 emissions”. “The states can then use these savings to fund the installation of the new PC’s being allocated to them through the Digital Education Revolution (DER)”.

“We know that the Rudd Government’s “Digital Educational Revolution” Policy will change the way that the education of our youth is delivered, however at what cost”. “With the promised $1.2 bn in funding, more schools will have access to more PCs than ever before. More PCs means more energy consumption, which means higher electricity bills and greater carbon emissions” Winter said.

“NSW was allocated 74,838 PC’s in round one of the DER and with this comes a power bill to run these PC’s of around $4.6 million dollars per annum, so you can understand why Verity Firth, the NSW Education Minister is upset and is wanting clarification on who will be paying the ongoing costs associated with the scheme.” Mark went onto say.

“The NSW Education Minister has the ability to self fund the shortfall and can save $3.8 million in power consumption by mandating simple measures that all PC’s within school are centrally shut down when not in use. This will not only have substantial savings for the states, allowing them to use these savings to fund the ongoing costs it will also assist with reducing Australia’s carbon footprint”, Winter concluded.

Computers Off is calling on both the federal and state ministers to meet and directly address this issue prior to the upcoming COAG meeting next month.

These sentiments are also endorsed by the ACS Green IT Special Interest Group, a not-for-profit ICT Industry initiative to support IT enabled sustainable business. For more details please visit www.acs.org.au/greenit. 

Mark Winter will be addressing the 300-400 attendees at the national Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACEC’08) conference being held in Canberra this week. He will be directly addressing this issue and challenging both the state and federal governments to step up and take action not just on the issue of funding but on the bigger issue of climate change and the impact that the Digital Education Revolution will have on our environment.
-ends-

For media information or a media interview with Mark Winter, Founder of ‘Computers
Off Australia’, please contact:

Yvonne Leinung                                  Mark Winter
National Public Relations Manager        Founder
Computers Off                      Computers Off 
P:0414 335 394                                  P: 0405 335 354
E: yvonnel@computersoff.org              mwinter@computersoff.org

Power Management Assumptions

Electricity Cost: $0.11/kWh
Avg PC Power: 57W
Monitor Power: 34W
Computers on 80% of the time during work hrs
20% are left on after work hrs
3.76923 day work week
7 hours/day

Calculations made from the Computers Off Energy Savings Calculator available at www.computersoff.org  

Detailed breakdown of the environmental impact and costs for schools associated with Round 1 of the DER can be found at www.computersoff.org/der/Round_One_Power_and_Environment_Costs.xls

Did you know?

People don’t generally leave their televisions on all day while they are at work or away on holidays. Yet across Australia, millions of work computers are on all night – wasting energy, costing business, learning places and the government over one billion dollars in electric generation costs, and contributing to global climate change.

According to a Gartner Report, the global Information and Communications Technology industry (ICT) accounts for approximately 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, which is equivalent to the emissions of the aviation industry.

According to a recent report by the Department of Environment and Water Heritage, there are now more than 16 million PCs within government departments, institutions and businesses and approximately 8 million PC in Australian homes.

If Australian home users, businesses and the government start to turn of their computers when they are not in use and implement automated power management, they will collectively save in excess of $1.3 billion ($1,332,407,232) per annum and we will reduce our carbon emissions by 7,938,926 tons per annum!

This is equivalent to taking 1,373,517 cars off the road, planting 2,165,260 trees and 8,882,715 homes that would be lit for a year by the energy saved by power management. (at 12c electricity cost per kWh).

How BIG an impact can you make by turning off your computer?

By turning off your computer each night when you leave work for a year you will help save as much energy as it takes:

o to run a clock radio for 1,392 weeks
o to make 9,280 bags of microwave popcorn
o to wash 464 loads of washing
o to use your blow dryer for 5,568 hours
o to vacuum for 464 hours
o to produce 3,480 plastic bags
o to run your microwave 24 hours a day for a week
o to boil your kettle for 24 hours a day for 268 days

By turning off your computer tonight when you leave work you will save as much energy as it takes:

o to run a clock radio for over 3 weeks
o to make over 20 bags of microwave popcorn
o to wash over 1 load of washing
o to blow dry your hair over 12 times
o to vacuum for over 1 hour
o to light a 100 watt light bulb for over 10 hours

By turning your computer off tonight when you leave work will save approximately 100kgs of coal from being used - that’s a saving of over about 120kgs of CO2 emissions.

What is the ‘Computers Off’ Campaign and Labeling Initiative?

The objectives of the ‘Computers Off’ campaign and labeling initiative are a part of a new development of practical programs being offered by the Information and Communication Technologies industry to improve energy efficiency and deal with global climate change.

The Computers Off campaign is a simple, yet important initiative which is designed to educate
business, government and home users about how we can all help reduce Australia’s carbon
footprint by implementing power management practices on our work and home computers.

The Computers off ‘label’ has been created as the computer industry’s guide to help business,
government and individuals quickly and easily identify organizations that are doing their part to reduce their power consumption and in turn reducing their CO2 emissions.

To find out more about how you can get involved, visit www.computersoff.org