JOINT PROCUREMENT OF ICT INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEVICES, FINLAND
The city of Tampere with its eight neighbouring municipalities procure all their ICT infrastructure and devices jointly, fostering a culture change within the public sector when it comes to its environmental impact.
All parties have agreed that the properties of the devices should fulfill at least the minimum requirements of environmental standards. At the end of their lifespan, the devices are recycled; either to be reused, or to be sold to the raw materials market in accordance with the standards for sustainable use. All users will be given uniform instructions on how to use the devices in an energy efficient manner. Electronic meeting practices (e.g. Skype for Business) and tele-working from home for example, have already been implemented.
Our municipal cooperation area has around 360,000 inhabitants and around 25,000 people who work in our municipalities. The vast majority of them use ICT-devices in their daily work. In addition to this, our schools have around 15,000 workstation ICT-devices for student use.
The procurement of the web hosting required for ICT has been centralized, and the energy needs of the datacentre have been optimised. For example, part of the heat energy produced by the devices is harnessed and used for heating of buildings.