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Government Cloud, Green Government, Policy

OGCIO leads green IT in HK

By Kelly Ng | 19 January 2010

Hong Kong’s Office of Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) has been looking at how it can reduce the environmental impact of its public sector. Speaking exclusively to FutureGov, GCIO Jeremy Godfrey revealed the opportunities and challenges of green IT initiatives.

OGCIO, being responsible for how technology is used within government, plays a leading role in cutting the carbon footprint of IT operations. The office issues procurement guidelines to encourage agencies to buy hardware that consumes less energy. It also explores more transformational ways of greening IT, such as virtualisation, data centre consolidation and moving government applications to the cloud.

Over the next 12 months, Godfrey and his team are focusing on how cloud computing can be best used to deliver more services to citizens and provide internal services to government in the most efficient way. Planning is underway and execution will likely take place in 2011.

Godfrey believes that it is important to leverage technology to deliver more for government. While contributing to the climate crisis may not be the sole driver, green IT is often in line with making the most of technology. “Green gives us an extra reason for IT initiatives like cloud computing,” he explained. “I don’t see any business reason to do IT in a non-ecological way.”

Initiatives that require change are always a challenge, said Godfrey. Sharing IT infrastructure, in particular, involves doing things in a coordinated way. Government agencies which have historically operated in silos need to start collaborating.

The role of OGCIO extends beyond greening the government’s IT operation. As the Environment Bureau pushes the whole of government to be greener – which involves the management of waste, water, and so on – OGCIO supports this by exploring ways in which IT can be used to achieve this policy objective.

A pilot project with the aim of reducing paper consumption is underway. A few committees within government have been selected to try out paperless meetings. Civil servants are used to communicating and sending drafts via email. They would come to meetings with a big folder of printed emails, hardcopy drafts with notes they have made.

OGCIO introduced a platform where members can collaboratively edit a draft paper and post documents in the electronic meeting folder. “Now, participants come to the meeting with their laptop, log in, and they can see documents and editing notes which they have added previously,” elaborated Godfrey. The new system has been well received by the test group and will be extended to the rest of the civil service soon.

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