Tesco aims to halve the carbon footprint of its IT department within the next five years, alongside wider plans to use technology to reduce its overall environmental impact.

The retailer’s green scheme ­started this autumn ­ not only measures the impact of the department, it is also developing technology to help reduce the group’s total footprint.

Plans include advanced scheduling software to make best use of the haulage fleet, video conferencing to reduce travel, and building management systems for high-energy equipment, such as fridges.

“The green concept goes hand in hand with efficiency,” said Tesco’s group technology and architecture director Mike Yorwerth.

“The most important aspect of the project is focused on giving a green slant to traditional, environmentally-unfriendly business procedures.”

Taking account of the impact of the IT department is also crucial because technology accounts for up to four per cent of Tesco’s annual carbon footprint of more than four million tonnes.

The first task is to measure CO2 emissions from systems, such as datacentre air conditioning, tills, electronic displays and cameras. They will be replaced with more energy-efficient alternatives, said Yorwerth.

Wider use of virtualisation software, which allows more efficient use of existing hardware, will also be central to the scheme’s success.

“We have taken advantage of virtualisation for some time,” said Yorwerth. “We rolled it out across our Windows-Intel servers 18 months ago and aim to entirely virtualise them in the next couple of years.”

More than four out of five IT departments do not measure CO2 emissions and less than 20 per cent see energy bills, says a Global Action Plan (GAP) survey.

The study of 120 UK IT departments found that 86 per cent do not measure their emissions, and more than 60 per cent of IT managers consider time and c ost as the biggest barriers to adopting sustainable policies.

“Technology accounts for three to four per cent of the world’s carbon emissions and 10 per cent of the UK’s energy bill,” said GAP director Trewin Restorick.