The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD) has won the Best Middle East Green Initiative Award for its "Green" Data centre. The prestigious award, instituted by the London-based international consulting firm BroadGroup for organizations demonstrating outstanding service quality, management excellence and technical achievement in data centre industry, was presented to the Agency at the 2nd Data Centre Strategies Middle East Conference in Abu Dhabi recently.
HE Majid Al Mansouri, Secretary General said “EAD aspires to be the leading organization in the region for Green IT initiative”. “We want to be a role model and work together with our partners in assisting organizations implements sustainable IT solutions", he added.
"Our Green IT initiatives are unique in the region and so we are delighted to receive this recognition. We set up our Green Data Centre, based on water cooled racks, modular power and cooling subsystems, which has resulted in significant savings in overall capital expenditure and has reduced operational cost. Additionally, through the virtualization exercise, we managed to eliminate 75% of our servers” said Entesar Ahmed Al Hosani, Manager of EAD’s Information Technology Department.
“Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) for our data centre is 1.5, which is in the efficient range, according to the Green Grid Data Center Power Efficiency Matrix", she added.
As part of the Green IT initiative, EAD ensures that all IT equipment procured would be Energy Star standard-compliant. Desktop computers of all employees have been replaced with EPEAT Gold-rated Laptops, enabling more than 50% savings in energy consumption. The Agency has also put in place video-conferencing solutions to cut overall employee-travel, contributing significantly to reduction in carbon footprint and related costs.
Other Green IT initiatives of EAD include Paper-Less Day, a day on which all non-essential printing ceases. Together with this almost all paper used in EAD for printing is from sustainably managed forests, and are 100% Post Consumer Content recycled unbleached paper.
About Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD)
The Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) is a governmental agency that was established in 1996. We are committed to protecting and managing biodiversity, providing a clean environment and promoting Sustainable Development in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. We provide a direction for Government, business and the community to build environmental considerations into the way they plan and live without compromising Abu Dhabi development. Since 2008, EAD has been awarded ISO 9001 for Quality; ISO 14001 for Environment and ISO 18001 for Health and Safety.
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