EU ‘must act on IT costs’

THE boss of a Bury-based IT firm is calling on the European Parliament to crack down on computer energy costs.

Steve Freeman of ACR IT believes that businesses across Britain are wasting nearly £6bn worth of energy a year.

The company has now begun lobbying North West members of the European Parliament to take action.

Mr Freeman has calculated that nearly five million small-to-medium sized businesses – which account for over 99% of the UK total – are estimated to spend £7.2bn on energy each year to run their computers, servers and data storage facilities.

He believes that this could be cut to £1.3b – saving a total of £5.9bn – if more companies adopted ‘virtualisation’ software technology.

This energy-efficient technology – which ACR IT specialises in – cuts computer-related energy expenses by consolidating servers and other hardware.

Mr Freeman said: “This country is on its knees when it comes to power and some form of legislation or financial incentive is probably the only way forward.

“Energy conservation on a massive business scale should be encouraged by either government incentives or the consideration of heavy fines for businesses that ignore their responsibilities.

“If people can be fined for dropping a cigarette packet in the street, how much should they have to pay for needlessly wasting £6bn worth of energy when it can be simply reduced.”