The environment is no longer a marginal issue (15-Jan-07)
From Lauraibm
Text of Article
Author: Mike Cansfield
15 January 2007
Due to the increasing importance given to the environmental impacts of the IT industry, we have included this article from our Euroview service.
The environment and the issue of climate change have been around for some time. A decade ago it appeared on the political agenda, but was then swamped by the spectre of global terrorism. In October the UK government published the Stern report into climate change - see my colleague Stephen Young's article on this. Last month at the Financial Times World Communications conference the topic was raised as an issue, and this week McKinsey published a paper on the importance of social responsibility (including the environment).
Comment: Let me nail my colours firmly to the mast - I believe this matters a great deal for three reasons. Firstly, the evidence that man is responsible for climate change is difficult to argue against (unless you are an American oil company) and matches what we see all around us. Secondly, as citizens we all have an obligation to pass on to the next generation a planet that is fit to inhabit. Thirdly, it makes good business sense. Leaving the first two points, let's consider the third from the ICT sector perspective.
From the business perspective, there are opportunities on the revenue and costs sides. On the revenue side, telcos can certainly push ICT (desk-to-desk video conferencing etc.) as a means to reduce the need for transport driven by fossil fuels (which contributes 25% of carbon emissions). On the costs side the Stern report estimated that a typical company could cut its carbon footprint by taking simple steps such as switching off the lighting in unused buildings. This is relatively easy to do.
But there is more that the ICT sector can do. For example, the opportunity for vendors is to manufacture hardware and software that uses less power; handset manufacturers could use far more recyclable components; telcos should consider ROI to also include asset recovery and recycle. Governments should incentivise the ICT sector (and others) to consider the whole life eco-cycle and not just short-term profits. The possibilities are endless. The industry can, and must, do more.
If reducing the corporate carbon footprint were not enough, there are other benefits from this too. If you talk to children these days they are all far more environmentally aware than their parents were at their age, and as a parent of three children I can verify this. Shari Swan (CEO of Streative Branding who specialises in researching the youth market) at the recent Financial Times conference said this matters so much to the next generation workforce they are more likely to be attracted to jobs in businesses that are making a positive contribution to tackling global warming than to those that do not. In short, if a company wants to be able to draw from the widest talent pool possible it needs to be able to show itself to be proactive on environmental issues.
To summarise, the future of the planet, the direction of the ICT industry, and the wellbeing of firms are inextricably linked. Many companies already publish an annual Corporate Social Responsibility report, but this is just the start. We believe over the next few years addressing environmental issues will become as important as NGNs, technological innovation and revenue generation. The environment is no longer a marginal topic but is becoming a strategic issue.
