I am Green and IT'll do Fine (16-Oct-07)
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Full story: I am Green and IT'll do Fine (16-Oct-07)
A problem for many companies wanting to green their IT is that they simply do not know where to start. To gain the most value there is a need to incorporate the whole of the business strategy when planning green projects and work from the top down. The move to green comes as companies begin to understand the extent of the environmental impact of their IT; which is responsible for 2% of the world’s carbon emissions.
Fujitsu’s whitepaper has set out a 5 step plan to help companies successfully move to green:
- 1. Ensure the project covers the full business and has support at the highest executive level.
- 2. Understand the scope of the greening of the company
- 3. Measure IT assets
- 4. Develop strategies, e.g. recycling, reduce power consumption, optimising infrastructure.
- 5. Implementation and tracking benefits.
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Companies may want to green their IT but many CIOs just don't know where to start, says Melbourne IT consultant Alison O'Flynn.
Ms O'Flynn, a senior consultant with Fujitsu Australia, will launch her company's blueprint for a green IT strategy at this week's ICT Sustainable Futures Forum in Melbourne.
It sees companies such as Fujitsu, Telstra, ANZ, IBM and Sun Microsystems discuss how technology supports a sustainable future.
She says the strategy that she helped write was developed in Australia and refined during use in Fujitsu and at an ASX Top 50 client.
"In our discussions with CIOs they say there is a need for this," Ms O'Flynn says. "There is such a big volume of information and media (about environmental issues) at the moment but they just don't know where to start."
She says businesses start with small, local green projects but they quickly find it difficult to expand these.
"If you really want to understand the benefits and get the most value it needs to come from the top down," she says.
"It needs to be an IT and a business strategy from the start - a whole-of-business strategy."
Companies are realising the serious environmental impact of their IT, she says. IT energy spending is predicted to rise by half in the next few years and IT is responsible for 2 per cent of the world's carbon emissions, equal to aviation.
And there are issues around the responsible disposal of old equipment.
Fujitsu's whitepaper sets out a five-step plan.
The first and most important step for any organisation, Ms O'Flynn says, is to "ensure their sustainable IT strategies align with overall strategic objectives and gain executive endorsement".
In plain language, this means ensuring the project covers the full business and has support at the highest executive level.
It includes understanding the scope of the greening of the company: deciding whether to take responsibility for the environmental impact from the internal business to the supply chain - including the end user.
The next step is to measure IT assets: profile their energy consumption and set benchmarks for sustainable practice. This includes exploring scenarios, such as "what if all our desktops were replaced with notebooks" or "what if we had fewer servers".
The business can then develop strategies such as recycling, reducing power consumption, optimising infrastructure and rationalising buying.
The final stages are implementation and tracking benefits.
Ms O'Flynn is hopeful that CIOs will use such strategies to explode from the starting blocks on environmental action.
"A recent survey found 94 per cent of company directors say they need to (come to terms with) climate change," she says.
"We can hopefully get that call to action in an organisation going."
The forum, presented by the Australian Information Industry Association, is in Melbourne on Thursday.
- Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
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