CNRS Talents 2023: EcoInfo awarded a collective Cristal

Dec 19, 2023

Every year, the CNRS organises a medal award ceremony in honour of researchers and staff members who make an outstanding contribution to the dynamism and reputation of the institution. On this occasion, ten engineers were awarded the Cristal collectif du CNRS for their work within the ÉcoInfo Service Group (GDS). Among the winners were three members of GRICAD: Alexis Arnaud, Françoise Berthoud and Bruno Bzeznik.

The Crystal Collective is awarded to teams of men and women working in research support who have carried out projects that are particularly outstanding in terms of their technical expertise, collective dimension, applications, innovation and impact. Within the GDS ÉcoInfo, the collective works to reduce the negative environmental and societal impacts of digital technology through assessment, awareness-raising and training initiatives, as well as scientific expertise. Through its activities, the collective is working towards sustainable digital technologies.

One of Gricad’s missions: to work towards digital sobriety

The members of Gricad are actively involved in this process. Structurally, at the level of the Grenoble site, GRICAD offers a complete range of shared services, which makes it possible to reduce the spin-off and duplication of services within components and research units: less equipment, more widely used equipment and optimised hosting are the basics of digital sobriety. On the other hand, our unit is committed to reducing its own environmental impact through its eco-responsible charter.

In addition, our unit has been working for several years to reduce the environmental footprint of digital computing services and storage, through environmentally demanding calls for tender and a policy based on the useful life of servers. Our unit is also working to optimise the use of computing resources.

GRICAD is developing a policy of reducing the environmental impact of data centres. The technical committee Datacentre de l’UGA, led by members of Gricad, monitors the performance and use of the Grenoble data centre for the ESR. The European Commission’s Datacentres 2023 Code of Conduct was awarded to the UGA in recognition of its DC-IMAG. The aim of the award is to encourage data centre operators and owners to adopt best practices that reduce energy consumption and promote sustainability. The award recognises the data centre technical committee for its approach to energy efficiency.

In addition, GRICAD assists laboratories in estimating the carbon footprint of digital technology and implementing a policy of digital sobriety. It also provides assistance in identifying ways of reducing the environmental impact of digital technology, in particular by :

• A pooling strategy
• Extending the useful life of equipment
• Identifying the best possible channel for giving a second life to unused equipment or having it recycled
• Running workshops on adopting more frugal uses of digital technology, in particular by reflecting on needs.

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