The Natural Heritage Foundation of Castilla y Leon, coordinator of the European project LIFE GREEN TIC met with representatives from the Regional Association of ICT companies (AETICAL) and of the province of Valladolid association (AVEIN) to analyse and share the aims and actions that will be developed in the framework of the project in the next 3 years.

The Regional Observatory of the Information Society and other entities and companies participated as well.

All participants highlighted the aims of the project, shared by all of them, in particular the importance of reducing the energetic consumptions due to the use of ICT (information and communication technologies) and at the same time to boost the development of ICT solutions to contribute to a more sustainable economic and social model.

For this, it was proposed to reinforce the collaboration among companies, associations, authorities, the University and the citizens for the development of instruments that contribute to these aims.
During the meeting, the consultation group of the project Green TIC was created. It will participate in the debates for the development of the different technical documents that will be generated  in the framework of the project, such as a manual of environmental best practices for the ICT users, a green procurement manual for ICT devices, models of technical specifications for the public biddings of ICT devices, or a methodology  development for the preparation of Green TIC plans and strategies, both for the authorities and public organisations and for the private organisations and the companies.

Some of the technical solutions analysed during the meeting were the virtualization of servers and desks, the reduction of the cooling expenses due to the data centres by means of technics like free cooling or self-cooled racks, data management optimisation, the availability of low energy consumption devices and the possibilities of ICT devices energy labelling, or the relation of these elements with security.

The importance of contents communication and marketing for spreading the GREEN TIC philosophy was also tackled to get together not only public and private organisations, but also of the whole ICT users group.

One of the fields that aroused more interest for the participants was Education, where the potential of GREEN TIC policies for this sector and for the LIFE project was made clear, since one of the pilot actions of the project is to set up a “Virtual campus” in the educational centres managed by the San Valero Foundation, in Aragón.

17 organisations have initially joined the group, although it is open to new entities and expects to receive new incorporations in the coming months.

Finally, it should be highlighted the offer of the Regional Observatory for the Information Society (ORSI) to put to disposal of the project aims, infrastructures and services developed under the Regional Telecommunications policies such as cyldigital spaces, the network of digital municipalities, the Centre of computation and the digital magazine ORSI.