Somebody give Volkswagen a biscuit, the car giant has saved around 9.26 million kilowatt hours per year of electricity following the reorganisation of its office equipment infrastructure.
The project started at the carmaker’s headquarters in 2005 and came into full effect for the first time last year. The company has reduced its energy requirements in this area by 86 per cent as compared to 2005. The savings achieved are equivalent to the annual energy requirement of around 1,400 households.
Volkswagen has made progress in terms of costs, energy efficiency and the environmental balance sheet by replacing more than 52,000 fax machines, printers, photocopiers and scanners with fewer than 17,500 multifunction devices throughout the group, and then integrating these new devices into a unified IT infrastructure. Seven energy-efficient standard devices take the place of 832 different models of office equipment. Thus group IT at Volkswagen reduced the pool of devices by 66 per cent and eliminated around 35,000 single machines. Stacked on top of each other, they would form a tower 14 kilometres high.
The project to reorganize the office infrastructure was planned and implemented by Group IT at Volkswagen. The Head of Group IT, Klaus Hardy Mühleck, stressed that: "Volkswagen orients its information and communication technology on criteria for sustainability. The multifunction device project, which is now complete, was a major and successful step. And there is more to come".
