Dominic Carpenter, Author at CACI

Environmental sustainability in business: importance and impact

Posted on: 13 March 2024

Key issues for countries and the businesses that operate within them to address in terms of climate change unfolded at the recent 28^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28). These issues urge immediate and significant action to be taken on fossil fuels and clean energy, national adaptation and climate finance, methane reduction, land use and more.

What does environmental sustainability in business mean?

Environmental sustainability in business is the operation of a business that does not compromise the environment. A business that has considered environmental sustainability prioritises the environment’s best interest, with society and its ecosystems coming before making a profit. It involves responsible decision-making that minimizes carbon footprint or waste while simultaneously improving the quality of life for humankind and the natural world alike.

Unfortunately, however, operating businesses as usual has had an increasingly detrimental impact on our planet. According to the latest State of the Global Climate report by the WMO, 2023 was the warmest year on record at about 1.4C, increasing pressure to shift their operations to more environmentally sustainable practices. This inevitably causes businesses to consider—where do we start? How do we begin making a difference?

What is the importance of environmental sustainability in business?

According to an article published by Maryville University, businesses that do not act responsibly will result in “the majority of many species not surviving past the 21st century”, reiterating how critical it is for businesses within every industry to take part in improving their environmental surroundings.

Although companies have a way to go before fully grasping the repercussions of ever-growing carbon footprints, those willing to tackle this challenge early on will get a head start on reshaping perspectives and realities.

Environmental sustainability in business practices

Businesses can rely on the three R’s– reduce, reuse and recycle– to begin reducing their environmental impact. However, there are several other examples of practices that businesses can incorporate into their operations amplify their reduction, including:

Life cycle assessments
Designing environmentally friendly products/services
Optimising product efficiency
Decreasing supply chain carbon footprint
Re-evaluating CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) expenses

Benefits of environmental sustainability in business

Reduces the impact of business costs

While the cost-of-living crisis is skyrocketing, improving the energy efficiency of business operations and decreasing waste will go a long a way in bracing for the impact of unexpected business costs. Using more energy efficient lighting or reusing existing resources can be quick-fix solutions for lowering costs.

Improves a business’ reputation

Environmentally sustainable businesses are viewed as a plus, and companies are eager to highlight this fact. Companies that can go “green” show that they’re serious about making a difference in the environment and are interested in more than just profitability. Businesses that can market themselves and develop their identity around their commitment to the betterment of the planet will notice incredible results in terms of their reputation.

Who is responsible for improving environmental sustainability in a business?

Businesses have been expected to pave the way towards environmental sustainability due to their notably significant contribution towards polluting the environment through waste, gas emissions and plastics generated. The responsibility does not necessarily begin with one individual within a business though– employees at every level of the business must work together to bring about change. A few examples include:

Business owners and leaders: Business owners and leaders are typically capable of leading strategic decision-making that influences the wider business. They can develop effective sustainability strategies and initiatives that have the power to change policy and induce change.
Business managers and supervisors: Managers and supervisors can supply valuable insights due to their more hands-on roles. They also typically have different perspectives and understandings as to how to improve business sustainability.
Employees: Employees can supply valuable contributions when encouraged to voice their opinions and concerns on how the business can become more sustainable.

Impact of environmental sustainability in business

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is striving to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
It’s going to take strong leadership, business-wide alignment on operations and an engaged corporate culture to successfully execute and maintain environmentally sustainable business practices. Businesses that start addressing these issues and challenge existing business processes will find themselves making a breakthrough towards becoming more environmentally sustainable while protecting the world around them.

How can CACI help you overcome these obstacles?

Our newly developed Mood Environmental Hub helps track all of your assets across multiple geographic locations and assess the environmental impact of your business. With a single click, users can drill down from multi-site, business-level functions, to departments or even individual teams to determine asset types and locations, enabling a quick assessment of priority focus areas for improvement. It can also visualise existing data through user-friendly dashboards that show carbon impact, consumption and cost at an enterprise level. The advanced modelling feature also outlines potential improvements, indicating ROI and carbon reduction impact. Additionally, you can easily check performance against carbon commitments such as Social Value through the initiatives tracker.

Producing carbon reduction target tracking reports or modelling for a business case is now a click away – to see how it works, you can book a demo here.

How do you become a net-zero business?

Posted on: 9 February 2024

At the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) towards the end of last year, attendees were reminded of this harsh reality during the opening speech made by Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary. According to Simon, countries must deliver new Nationally Determined Contributions by 2025 which include achieving a 1.5C world by 2030. This comes following the publication of the Provisional State of the Global Climate 2023 report, calling 2023 “the warmest year on observational record”, concluding a near-decade of the highest temperatures on record.

What is net zero?

The United Nations (UN) has stated that to avoid significant climate change, global warming must be limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Most countries believe that they can meet this target by achieving net zero global emissions by 2050, however, to achieve net zero, greenhouse gas emissions must be balanced with those that are removed from the atmosphere. So, what practices can businesses adopt to balance their greenhouse gas emissions? How can businesses overcome the obstacles these practices may present?

Business benefits of moving to net zero

In addition to the environmental benefits, focusing on net zero has a strong business case. Many businesses are now increasingly being asked by investors, funding bodies, clients and staff about their net zero goals and actions. There’s a real risk of losing business because of market changes driven by global net zero efforts, it’s no longer simply a facilities issue.

What are the main obstacles?

It’s important to recognise the need for serious financial investment in more large-scale opportunities like:

Renewable energy
Heat decarbonisation
Product eco design
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Climate finance

Deciding where to start, however, and finding the right solutions is an obstacle in itself. At COP28, countries also struggled to agree on four major areas regarding emissions, including:

Authorising emissions reductions when transferring to other countries, and the revising or revoking of authorisation
Reviewing confidential information and correcting any reporting inconsistencies
Defining the scope of “cooperative approaches” on carbon trading to help countries meet their NDCs
Eligible activities within carbon markets.

Despite these challenges, to make a real difference to carbon reduction– whether you’re a SME or large enterprise– you must look at your entire asset base, from IT infrastructure to end user devices to physical assets. Businesses must also consider how to track the environmental impact of these assets and understand their interdependencies to decide which are the most damaging or which are repair or replacement priorities to achieve a positive carbon impact. Ambitious targets will also need to be set out and met by businesses to support their country’s NDCs by 2025.

How can CACI help you overcome these obstacles?

Our Mood Environmental Hub helps track all of your assets across multiple geographic locations and assess the environmental impact of your business. It distills assets from multi-site, business-level functions to departments or even individual teams to provide suggestions for swapping your power-hungry devices to less polluting alternatives and its resulting impact. This enables you to cut costs and fully understand your environmental footprint on demand, empowering your decision making.

The Mood Environmental Hub also takes your existing data and visualises it through user-friendly dashboards that show carbon impact, consumption and cost at an enterprise level. With a single click, you can drill down to asset type, location, department or business function, enabling a quick assessment of priority focus areas for improvement. The advanced modelling feature helps you explore potential improvements, indicating ROI and carbon reduction impact.

You can also easily benchmark performance against carbon commitments such as Social Value through the initiatives tracker. Producing carbon reduction target tracking reports or modelling for a business case is now a click away – to see how it works, you can book a demo here.

UKAS Recommends CACI’s Digital Forensics Lab for ISO 17043 Accreditation

Posted on: 14 November 2023

CACI’s new Digital Forensics Laboratory has successfully passed its initial assessment and been recommended for ISO 17043 by UKAS for its Digital Forensic Proficiency Test schemes. This recent recommendation from UKAS follows closely after CACI’s ISO 17025 recommendation, achieved in September, and coincides with the Forensic Science Regulator’s Statutory Code of Practice, effective since Monday 2nd October.

CACI has been recommended by UKAS for accreditation to the following scope:

ISO/IEC 17043:2023

CACI’s current schemes are as follows;

Mobile-Based Device – Acquisition, Processing and Analysis
Computer-Based devices – Acquisition
Computer- Based Devices – Processing and Analysis

All schemes are tailored to meet the criteria for accredited digital forensics (DF) laboratories operating in law enforcement. Participation rates during proficiency testing cycles have been consistently increasing.

This further evidences CACI’s commitment to supporting UK Law Enforcement with digital forensics and FSR Code compliance. The laboratory, based in Northallerton, was launched on 9th June and has been created to mirror the capabilities of law enforcement digital forensic laboratories, adhering to industry standards and employing the same tools and processes.

It took an 18-month process for the laboratory to be created, but it is now housed with industry-leading individuals with years of expertise across the digital forensics space.

The formation of the team was heavily influenced by the already-established counterpart in the United States, which has been providing exceptional service for the past decade, shown through various accomplishments and significant recognition.

CACI’s DF Laboratory’s Operations Director, Richard Cockerill, had this to say:

“We are thrilled to announce that CACI has received a recommendation from UKAS for ISO 17043 accreditation for our Digital Forensic Proficiency Test schemes. This achievement highlights the dedication and expertise of our digital forensics team. This accreditation significantly strengthens our ability to support Law Enforcement, particularly with the Forensic Science Regulator’s Statutory Code now in effect. With our robust capabilities and specialised expertise, CACI is well-positioned to deliver high-quality digital forensic investigation services to the UK criminal justice system. This recommendation from UKAS marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to excellence within the UK.”

CACI are looking forward to embrace the array of opportunities expected for our digital forensics team following the confirmation of this recommendation. Furthermore, we look forward to the continued progression we’ve seen since the formation of the laboratory.

How CACI is enabling the UCLH Find & Treat team through digital technology

Posted on: 21 September 2023

BACKGROUND…

University College London Hospital (UCLH) provide specialist medical services and treatment for acute illnesses across 10 sites around London. This is how we helped them with their mission to deliver top quality patient care, excellent education and world class research.

Since 2007, the UCLH NHS specialist team ‘Find & Treat’ has provided marginalised and vulnerable citizens in the UK healthcare access that bypasses traditional approaches by operating as a mobile healthcare unit and outreach service.

Using an array of highly modified vehicles (Mobile Health Units), the service allows diagnoses and future treatment to be taken directly to patients, significantly improving the ability to reach and treat particularly vulnerable citizens, such as those that are homeless across London and beyond. With their latest innovation, the team is introducing an electric trike, a world first, enabling further reach into commonly inaccessible locations to further enhance the support given to those most in need.

From its outset, the ambition to scale up to a national level and provide services, has remained at the heart of what the Find & Treat service aims to do. One way to achieve this goal has been through the development of advanced technology, which was where a partnership between UCLH and CACI started.

Approximately a decade ago, UCLH and CACI partnered to focus on building ITRICS, a streamlined technical solution that could support the workflow of a real-time end-to-end process from diagnosis to treatment. Since then, we’ve continued to provide support and improvements, and we will be launching a new version that will incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) in summer 2023. This inclusion will significantly improve the patient data available to the medical practitioners.

Find & Treat continues to push the boundaries of accessible healthcare for vulnerable populations. Through our partnership, we will continue to apply an innovative use of technology to support direct connections of patient diagnostics to NHS IT systems without the need for a visit to a hospital or surgery. This will improve access and outcomes for people often missed by traditional healthcare access points.

THE CHALLENGE…

UCLH operates a specialist outreach team that collaborates with front line service providers to tackle tuberculosis (TB) and associated conditions amongst vulnerable people around the UK and Ireland.
The organisation wanted to enhance their mobile X-ray service to use the latest technologies to help identify, manage, support and treat patients in real time.
The original system, based on a full hospital software suite, provided images for later diagnosis only.
UCLH needed a streamlined solution to support the workflow of a real-time end-to-end process from diagnosis to treatment.
The available proprietary market solutions were not real time and were prohibitively expensive, reiterating the need for a cost-effective and accurate solution that could help them overcome their challenges.

THE SOLUTION…

CACI developed a fully mobile solution for UCLH using the latest secure connectivity and Cloud technologies.
Our approach combined workflow and questionnaire engines within a secure, streamlined, web-based solution, creating a single patient care pathway accessible to all involved NHS professionals.

Other benefits included

A single point of access for all patient records, clinic information and treatment plans, significantly reducing duplicate, or worse still, lost patient records.
Recording confidential patient details and up to-date diagnosis/treatment information in a single, secure UK database, fully compliant with NHS data governance policies.
Provision of End-to-End Managed Service and Hosting for ongoing maintenance and support with the inclusion of industry leading specialist third parties.
We continue to support the UCLH and Find & Treat team in their endeavours, not only with continued class leading support and development services, but also sponsoring the introduction of their eco-trike to the Health fraternity.

THE RESULTS…

Easy-to-use mobile technology, readily adopted by healthcare professionals.
Expandable, vendor neutral solution, which is cheaper to deploy and extend to other points of future care provision.
Process-centric solution that saves time and avoids duplication of efforts.
Helps UCLH meet its primary goal of providing high-quality patient care.
Fully comprehensive End to End Managed Service for Application, Cloud and Hosting support.

“CACI designed and built an innovative tele-radiology solution based on the latest cloud technologies to help UCLH provide a more effective service to vulnerable patients. The CACI team provides an agile, flexible and pragmatic approach that is a welcome and affordable change from the larger healthcare manufacturers.”

– Brendan Scott, Operations Manager, Find & Treat

To view the full customer story, click here.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions or want to learn more, get in touch today.

Using cloud tooling to measure efficiency & embed into the lifecycle process

Posted on: 31 July 2023

This piece rounds up our 3-part blog series that has explored the topic of Green IT. Part 1 explored Green IT and it’s importance, and why businesses should follow it. Part 2 explored another aspect of Green IT, by looking into green cloud computing. To round up this blog series, I will now discuss cloud tooling.

What is cloud tooling & what are examples of cloud tools?

Cloud tooling allows you to manage hybrid and multi-cloud services and resources. There are a variety of analytical tools available for you to utilise to determine their carbon footprint within a cloud environment. A couple of the notable tools include the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, aws-fpga, and turbostat.

AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool

The AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool is one of Amazon’s tools supplied to users. While it’s great that AWS do supply a Carbon Footprint tool, it unfortunately doesn’t provide sufficient granularity to measure carbon emissions on a per service basis or per hour basis, which complicates the distinguishing of areas for potential optimisation. Its data is also affected by the percentage of renewable energy at the time of recording, and its emission figures are affected based on the location you are hosting from and any changes in the energy supply on Amazon’s end.

Aws-fpga & turbostat

While these tools allow for nearly real-time collection of data, it is only on certain systems. For turbostat, it must be a Unix OS and FPGA for running on an EC2. They can determine the KW/h which can then be converted and compared to the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool for verification. With the use of some pipelines, you can also use them to develop a Realtime analysis tool to measure the efficiency of your designed solutions.

What is efficiency & what metrics can be used to track energy efficiency?

Energy Use/Useful work done

One metric to track energy efficiency is “Energy Use/Useful work done”. Energy use is one of the clearest metrics that can show the costs of running a system. This can be converted to greenhouse gas emissions if the nature of the power supply is known. This metric can also assess the other effects that energy sources have on the environment, such as hydropower changing how rivers flow, and the costs of other infrastructures that are needed to buffer energy delivery.

Useful work done in an hour

The old saying “time = money” applies to this rating system, where only the fastest wins. Usually, intensive algorithms push processors harder, which increases the energy requirements of the chip and leads to more heat being released by the chip. The hotter the chip gets, the harder the cooling systems must work, and these typically require energy. In data centre settings, cooling can amount to a significant percentage of the energy budget and will not always show in the statistics for device usage, as they can be separate systems responsible for cooling thousands of server racks.

Hardware utilisation

Another measure of efficiency can be the utilisation of the hardware. If you focus on the effects of the cloud and increasing internet reliance, you should consider how these systems operate. Typically, these are large racks of thin computers with higher processing power density, where cooling is managed both on a machine and device level.

The consensus seems to be that running your services via scalable VM’s will yield the greatest power reductions of a service. This is due to allowing the unused computing power of the physical servers to be distributed to other services. Through this, you can assess the energy intake that will be split between the VM’s operating on the devices. There have been great leaps in improving the scalability of VM’s across physical systems and enhancing their time and energy efficiency to reduce the overhead of this approach. Over the last decade, cloud computing has put vast efforts into these processes to reduce the hardware needed by these companies.

Cost per hour

Defining efficiency by cost per hour can be measured from AWS via user panels and may be convertible to an estimate of power usage. It can be affected greatly by market prices; therefore, it is advised that it is not relied upon. When it comes to green cloud computing, this is the least effective method to gauge efficiency, as costings are separate from the effects in the environment.

How does CACI define and measure efficiency?

We measure efficiency by focusing on the following:

kW/h power draw (on the VM Level)

time per action (the speed of the algorithm in comparison to the theoretical max efficiency in big O notation, where possible).

Embedding cloud tools into the software development lifecycle (SDLC) process

During a software development lifecycle (SLDC), we often re-evaluate efficiencies in performance and development. However, going green is not always a prominent consideration as part of this lifecycle. There are, in fact, several ways in which you can embed green methodologies and practices at crucial stages of the software development lifecycle (SLDC) to enhance sustainability and environmental friendliness.

Step 1: Planning

The first step in the embedding process should be setting clear goals and determining what the smallest carbon footprint of your project should be. This must remain a driving force in all decision-making throughout the software development lifecycle and not just at the initial planning stage.

A critical step in any project is deciding the technical tooling and infrastructure to use, from the cloud provider to the hardware and programming language. When choosing a language, you should consider current knowledge, speed of the language and suitability. You should also assess how energy efficient a language is. Research has shown how energy efficient the most popular languages are and has demonstrated a relatively close link between speed and energy efficiency.

Step 2: Development and testing

Tooling:

At CACI, we conduct several application tests, from profile testing for efficiency to bottle necking. Energy efficiency should also be identified as an area to test and optimise. We recommend you reference the following tooling list– which can be used in various environments– to help you gather and process energy usage:

Linux
Intel
Powerstat
Perf
likiwid
AMD
PowerTOP
Windows
Intel powerlog
PowerGadget
Nvidia-GPU
Nvidia-SMI

Using these tools, certain components can be tested to see which has the highest energy consumption. When linked with an algorithmic analysis, this can create a cohesive picture of where the priority and optimisation focus should be.

Calculating an algorithms efficiency:

When testing an algorithm’s efficiency, you must rely on a comparative analysis using the same external factors or hardware. For that, you should use Energy Per Useful work done as a metric. Energy efficiency calculations can be defined as:

EnergyEfficiency = n / UsedEnergy

Where ‘n’ is useful work done.

An example using sorting algorithm as the subject, we would define useful work done as sorted items.

Energy Efficiency = SortedItems / UsedEnergy

Step 3: Deployment (H2)

Most modern applications are deployed through cloud tooling. You must ensure the adoption of a green-focused server or architecture is met, as this is an integral step to lowering your energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Virtualisation of your application will lower the number of physical servers needed and lower emissions as a result. Ensuring that good scaling principles are implemented, particularly scaling down services when demand is lower, will not only save you money, but will lower emissions. Finally, serverless computing efficiently shares infrastructure to run functions only on demand, such as AWS Lambda or Microsoft functions. As billing is determined by the length of execution time, an optimised application will not only cut costs, but also energy.

Learn more about how you can leverage cloud tooling to strategically plan for your own SDLC process by contacting us today.

CACI honoured with Armed Forces Gold Award

Posted on: 17 July 2023

CACI has been recognised by the UK government for its continued support for the Armed Forces with the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS) Gold Award.

The ERS Gold Award is the highest badge of honour for organisations which have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and demonstrated outstanding support for those who serve and have served. The Awards recognise employers who actively support the Armed Forces community in their workplace and encourage others to follow their lead.

“We are extremely proud to be awarded the Gold Award under the Ministry of Defence’s Employer Recognition Scheme,” said Cathy Sutherland, Senior Vice President, Head of CACI IIG. “This recognition is a testament to our commitment to supporting the armed forces and providing opportunities for reservists and cadets. We are grateful for the support of the Greater London Reserve Forces and Cadets Association and we look forward to continuing our work with them in the future.”

To win a Gold Award from the Ministry of Defence, organisations must show that they provide 10 extra paid days leave for reservists and have supportive HR policies in place for veterans, reserves, Cadet Force adult volunteers and spouses and partners of those serving in the Armed Forces. They must also advocate the benefits of supporting those from the Armed Forces community, encouraging others to improve their own practices.

Additional information:

The ERS was launched to recognise and reward employers who support Defence and inspire others to do the same.

The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise by the nation ensuring that those who serve or who have served in the Armed Forces, and their families, are treated fairly. More information about the Armed Forces Covenant and how to get involved is available here.

The full list of Employer Recognition Scheme Gold, Silver and Bronze award winners is available here.

Strengthen your cyber security credibility through certification

Posted on: 6 July 2023

Cyber security continues to be of paramount concern for businesses of all sizes and industries. Protecting sensitive data, ensuring business continuity and building customer trust are crucial aspects of maintaining a competitive edge. But that’s not the whole story.

While improving cyber security measures are undoubtedly important, your business also needs to show credibility in being able to protect your systems and data to reassure your customers and partners. A great way of showing commitment to cyber security is through applying for recognisable certifications such as Cyber Essentials or ISO 27001.

Business benefits of certification

A Technical Roadmap to Cyber Security
Certification provides you with a framework of technical requirements that will safeguard your company from cyber threats. By working towards achieving these requirements, you’ll have a ready-made roadmap of what you need to put in place to greatly improve your cyber security posture. Even if you don’t end up going for the credential after all, it can still be a useful exercise to look at the requirements when setting your cyber security strategy.

Unlock New Business Opportunities
Many organisations now require their business partners to adhere to specific cybersecurity standards before engaging in collaborations. These often require you to demonstrate your high security standards through certification, opening the door to new business prospects and partnerships. So certification gives you a competitive advantage with these organisations and will position your company as a trusted and reliable partner in the market.

Demonstrate Cyber Security Commitment
Demonstrating your cybersecurity readiness by obtaining certifications like Cyber Essentials show your commitment to protecting sensitive data and maintaining a secure operating environment. This demonstration can build trust, enhance your brand image and help retain customers.

How to get started

As a holder of Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essential Plus certification, CACI are well-equipped to guide you through the process of becoming Cyber Essentials certified. We have cyber security experts who can perform a comprehensive risk assessment to identify and advise you on your cybersecurity needs – Find out more about our cybersecurity capabilities today.

CACI also has a range of other capabilities in Network Services – take a look at what else we offer.

Note:
About Cyber Essentials – NCSC.GOV.UK

What is green cloud computing & how are businesses using it?

Posted on: 5 July 2023

In my previous blog, I introduced the topic of Green IT and it’s importance, and why businesses should follow it. This blog will explore another aspect of Green IT, by looking into green cloud computing.

What is green cloud computing?

Green cloud computing is a practice companies undertake to bring efficiencies to the cloud computing space. This practice helps them use what they already have available more sustainably to reduce their energy consumption and their overall carbon footprint. This has been pushed into the public conscience in part from the work of the United Nations COP meeting along with supporting works from the European Commission and other organisations.

While cloud-based computing bolsters many benefits in modern society, it has become increasingly pervasive due to its high-power consumption which will only continue to demand more generated energy. The number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices worldwide is forecast to almost triple from 9.7 billion in 2020 to over 29 billion in 2030. In 2018, the energy consumption of European data centres was also ~77 TWh, the equivalent of 1000 coal energy producing power plants.

How does green cloud promote environmental sustainability?

Green cloud computing promotes environmental sustainability in several ways from maximising energy efficiencies to encouraging the use of recycled materials and more. Some of its most impactful methods of promotion include:

It utilises more of a physical server’s processing power with the use of scalable virtualisation. Allowing many virtual servers to run on the same hardware, with inbuilt protections from each other’s applications and data, reduces the number of physical servers needed by data centres.
All machines can be cooled by larger, more energy efficient cooling systems. These systems are very advanced and can use AI to continuously optimise the efficiency of the whole data centre. The slight downside to the cloud approach is the minor increase in network traffic, which can add a reliance to network connectivity in the way these applications are designed.

What are businesses claiming to do with green cloud computing?

The three largest Cloud service providers currently are Google (~10%), Microsoft (~23%) and AWS (~32%) in ascending order of their market share. Each of these will be tackled in the pattern of carbon emissions, energy make-up and energy usage and efficiencies.

Google

Google may be a multinational tech giant, however, it is only the third largest cloud service company with ~10% market share as of Q4 ’22. The company claims to have been carbon neutral in this area since 2007, and they have committed to only having 0 carbon energy sources by 2030.

Google recommends that businesses consider the following strategies for reducing their carbon footprints:

Choose cloud regions with higher average hourly CFE% and lower grid carbon intensity. For regions that have the same CFE%, use grid carbon intensity to further compare the emissions performance of those regions.
Optimise cloud workloads to reduce carbon emissions. One example is increasing efficiency by using elastic Cloud services and autoscaling features to minimize unused compute resources and run batch workloads during times when grid carbon intensity is lower.
Set organisational policies to restrict the location of cloud resources to cleaner regions.

Google also claims to have the more efficient server than the typical data centres. Reflecting on this point, they refer to a paper identifying the energy use of data centres in 2018 being comparable to the energy use in 2010, despite the massive leaps in processing power.

Microsoft

With their Azure offerings, Microsoft currently has a 23% market share as of Q4 ’22, nearly double its market share in Q4 ’17. In 2020, Microsoft announced that they would become carbon negative by 2030. While this is a bold claim, it is an undoubtedly great first step for the green cloud.

Amazon

With their AWS offering, Amazon outcompetes in cloud services with a whopping 32% market share as of Q4 ’22, which has been constant since 2017. They claim to be on track for full renewable power sources by 2025, five years earlier than the original goal of 2030. They also aim for the wider organisation to become carbon neutral by 2040.

According to 451 Research, moving to the AWS cloud is 3.6 times more energy efficient. In 2018, Azure research also claimed that the Microsoft Cloud is ~93% more energy efficient and ~98% more carbon efficient than on-premises solutions. Although this echoes the results found by Google, these gains in efficiency may not be down to the individual companies, rather an industry-wide shift affected in part by newer hardware focusing on energy efficiency.

This blog is part 2 of a 3-part blog series exploring the topic of Green IT. You can read the next part by following the below link:

Using cloud tooling to measure efficiency & embed into the lifecycle process

Find out more about green cloud computing and how it can support your business by contacting us today.

What is green information technology (Green IT) & why should businesses follow it?

Posted on: 27 June 2023

Climate change is an ever-growing problem, and the technology sector is unfortunately playing a substantial role in this. By 2040, this sector is set to account for 14% of the world’s carbon footprint, a massive uptake from the 1.5% it occupied in 2007. Understanding how businesses operating within the technology sector can analyse and reduce their carbon footprint and leverage green information technology (also known as green IT) practices is critical. So, what exactly is green IT and how will this shape the future of this sector’s carbon footprint?

This is the first part of a 4-blog series on Green IT. In future posts, we will discuss how businesses can use green IT to reduce their carbon footprint, choose the right cloud provider, and optimise algorithms for energy efficiency.

What is green information technology (Green IT)?

Green information technology (green IT) is the practice of using environmentally sustainable computing. It aims to minimise the effects of the technology space on global emissions to combat climate change. The concept originated from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 through a project called “Energy Star”, which identified products that were superior in energy efficiency and helped organisations choose products that would cut costs and reduce their carbon footprint.

Why is green IT so important?

Green IT will have significant impacts in areas beyond climate change, including:

Compliance to achieve net zero carbon emissions

Recent updates made to the Green Finance Strategy from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will ensure businesses continue to meet their green finance ambitions and standards. Climate change has remained a prominent consideration within this. The FCA recognises the importance of business’ resilience in collective action to achieve net zero carbon emissions, therefore, businesses are being held increasingly accountable for any climate-related actions.

Competitive advantage through ESG scores

Businesses worldwide have increasingly focused on achieving environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria to prove they have adopted good sustainability practices. ESG criteria assess a company’s environmental risks and potential harm to the environment. ESG scores are calculated for individual businesses based on relative performance within the company’s sector (for environmental and social) and country of incorporation (for governance). Businesses that receive a positive ESG score are ultimately more attractive to customers and investors.

What can your business do to follow Green IT best practices?

While the UK is considered the second most environmentally friendly country in the world according to the 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), ongoing environmental challenges call all organisations to continue to innovate and act.

Businesses may be daunted by the fact that an eco-conscious development strategy is not easy, cheap, and will not happen overnight. Technology solutions can also be highly complex, with many parts to manage and design, which can also complicate the ability to determine the impact the solution may have on climate change. Setting policies and best practices for a business to follow is a good first step, and everyone in the business must bear some level of responsibility to help drive green IT, from the CTO to the engineers and architects.

There are several key takeaways that the wider business should consider to effectively implement and follow green IT best practices, most notably:

Demand for the information and technology sector is only going to increase, making it a massive contributing factor to climate change.

Embed green methodologies and practices into the software development lifecycle to set clear goals to help mitigate carbon footprints.

Make informed decisions on what tooling and infrastructure is going to be utilised.

More research and innovation need to happen, especially in cloud computing and analytical developmental tools.

This blog is part 1 of a 3-part blog series exploring the topic of Green IT. You can read the other 2 parts by following the below links:

To learn more about green IT and how your business can adopt these best practices, contact us today.

Threat Management: Best practice for your business

Posted on: 1 June 2023

In my previous blog articles, I highlighted the most significant cybersecurity threats faced by businesses in 2023 and debunked five prevalent misconceptions surrounding threat management. Moreover, I emphasised that safeguarding against cyber threats demands an ongoing commitment rather than a singular investment. In this concluding blog post, I will outline the best practices to ensure the safety of your business.

Why is Threat Management so important?

Before we go into the best practice of Threat Management, let me explain its importance. The variety of threats has significantly increased and attack strategies have become more complex across the globe. Your Security Operations Centre (SOC) teams must prioritise cybersecurity capabilities and implement a practical Threat Management framework.

If a data breach can be detected sooner the blast radius can be significantly reduced, cutting the financial cost substantially and reducing any fines imposed. According to the data breach report published by IBM in 2022, companies can save more than £960K if they can detect a data breach in 200 days or less.

Therefore, an effective Threat Management plan is essential for your company to have the best chance of quickly detecting and responding to threats.

What’s the best practice for Threat Management?

Threat Management requires seamless integration between people, processes and technology to stay ahead of emerging threats and security risks. Here’s some advice on what you need for each element.

People – Establishing a cybersecurity culture
Your C-suite executives and Board members play a crucial role in establishing a cybersecurity culture. By formulating a governance structure and proactively communicating their expectations to the employees, leaders and managers can motivate them to learn the risks and cooperate with your company’s cybersecurity strategy.

Processes – NIST Cybersecurity Framework
I recommend the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF 1.1) to help you effectively manage the threats. This is a set of guidelines published by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to mitigate cybersecurity risks for organisations. According to a survey in 2021, almost 48% of respondents said they were using this framework standard to map their control system. Furthermore, NIST will launch a new and more significant update to the Framework, CSF 2.0, in early 2024 to keep pace with technology and threat trends, integrate lessons learned and move the best practice to common practice.

CSF 1.1 comprises five primary functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond and Recover. These functions are not intended to form a sequential path but are performed in parallel, forming an operational culture that addresses the dynamic cybersecurity risk.

Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST

Identify – This is the fundamental function for effectively using the Framework. Your SOC teams should thoroughly understand your business resources and risks. The activity categories include Asset Management, Business Environment, Governance, Risk Assessment and Risk Management Strategy.

Protect – Your SOC teams need to develop and implement appropriate safeguards to ensure the delivery of critical services. This function encompasses activities in Identity Management and Access Control, Awareness and Training, Data Security, Information Protection Processes and Procedures, Maintenance and Protective Technology.

Detect – This function refers to the activities to identify the occurrence of a cybersecurity event on a timely basis. The activities are categorised into Anomalies and Events, Security Continuous Monitoring and Detection Processes.

Respond – Make sure your SOC teams develop an action plan to respond to detected cyberattacks and other cybersecurity incidents. They can create activities around Response Planning, Communications, Analysis, Mitigation and Improvements.

Recover – This is a critical function to ensure business continuity in the event of a cyberattack. Your SOC teams can plan activities in Recovery Planning, Improvements and Communications for cyber resilience plans.

Technology – Leveraging different tools and new technology
Other than the threat management tools that I introduced in the last blog, your SOC teams can leverage various technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, behavioural analysis, prediction tools and Internet of Things modules to automate parts of the Threat Management process. This can help ensure your data integrity and prevent any holes in your cybersecurity systems.

Conclusion

The success of a comprehensive Threat Management strategy hinges upon the active involvement of all your colleagues, beginning with your organisational leaders. By fostering a robust cybersecurity culture within your company, you can ensure that your colleagues receive thorough training and grasp the significance of cybersecurity. Through the seamless integration of streamlined processes and cutting-edge technology, your company will be able to swiftly identify threats and respond proactively, thereby fortifying information security and bolstering business continuity management.

How CACI can help

CACI has cybersecurity experts who can improve your business’s protection levels. Our capabilities include Zero Trust Network Architecture, Threat Analytics, Systems Hardening and Network Analytics. We can also perform a risk assessment to advise you on your cybersecurity needs. Find out more about our cybersecurity capabilities.

Notes:
[1] Cybersecurity standards usage control systems 2021 | Statista
[2] Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, Version 1.1 (nist.gov)
[3] Quick Start Guide | NIST
[4] Cost of a data breach 2022 | IBM