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Sustainable IT: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Materials
Waste in the IT Environment
Sustainable
IT, also known as Green IT, is a
multi-component approach to establishing and sustainably
operating an IT business function. Sustainable
IT is becoming increasingly important in the eyes
of many organisations. A survey[1]
of organisations of all sizes across both
the government and corporate sectors found that
80 percent of IT decision makers believe that
implementing Sustainable IT in their organisations
is important and 49 percent cite positive reputation
as one of the greatest benefits. However, 51 percent
of IT decision makers cite cost as a barrier to
implementing Sustainable IT technologies, 25 percent
cite complexity of implementation and maintenance,
and 21 percent cite potential disruptions to current
IT systems.
This Lectures Series offers a solution that addresses
many barriers to Sustainable IT while optimising
costs and minimising negative environmental impact.
The focus is on the product and service provision
components of Sustainable IT. Specifically, these
lectures describe a holistic, end-to-end solution
for IT systems of medium and large enterprises.
This solution consists of:
-
Product
service systems: also known as sustainable
services and systems and eco-efficient
services.[2]
There are several product service systems
topologies. These Lectures describe the use
services topology [3]
as applied to IT products and services.
In this topology, customers purchase the services
of some or all IT hardware and software products
through leasing, renting, sharing or pooling
while the vendor maintains the ownership, responsibility
and stewardship of the products. The aims are
to remove aged technology with minimal environmental
impact while customers maximise their investment
on their IT systems. Vendors can be either an
external company or the customer’s IT
business function, operating largely independently.
-
Sustainable IT products:
i.e. those items of client and data centre equipment
that are resource efficient to manufacture,
transport and operate, and have low-to-no adverse
health impacts on people and the environment
throughout their lifecycles.
These lectures draw from information regarding
product service systems and sustainable IT products.
They also draw from information regarding the
development and implementation of several previously
and currently popular IT service models that are
relevant to successful product service systems,
including: IT service management (ITSM),[4]
also known as service-oriented IT
management (SOITM); service-oriented
architecture (SOA),[5]
also known as service-oriented computing
(SOC); and IT leasing.[6]
Since an IT system is a large and heavily integrated
system with many components, a change in any component
of the system will impact on several other components.
Thus, it is important that decisions are informed
by an accurate understanding and assessment of
the impacts on the whole IT system. Hence, readers
may be interested in learning about the business
components of Sustainable IT, which are beyond
the scope of these lectures. The business components
are particularly relevant to decision makers in
enterprises and include:
-
IT business function
governance: Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR), sustainability Capability Maturity Model
(CMM), change management, supply chain management.
-
IT business function
management: revenue, cost minimisation,
asset utilisation, risk minimisation.
- Environmental management systems: ISO
14000 family, Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS).
- Resource audits: energy and waste.
- Developing projects: scoping, goals,
objectives and targets.
- Measurement: Balanced Scorecard, key
performance indicator (KPI), metrics, lifecycle
analysis (LCA).
- Reporting: Triple Bottom Line (TBL),
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), carbon footprint.
- IT industry maturity and trends: emerging
technologies, regulations, Emissions Trading Scheme
(ETS), carbon offsets.
Sustainable
IT: Reducing Carbon Footprint and Materials Waste
in the IT Environment
Text Book:
In the preparation of any education program, and
in particular an introductory course, it is a
challenge to cover all possible questions or uncertainties
that may arise during delivery of the material.
In response to this challenge, this course is
supported by the text book developed by our team,
namely 'Hargroves, K. and Smith, M.H. (2005) The
Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities,
Innovation and Governance in the 21st Century,
Earthscan, London'. References and optional reading
material is provided for each lecture for those
who wish to explore the content in more detail.
Acknowledgements
The
Sustainable IT Lecture Series was produced by The
Natural Edge Project using funds provided by Hewlett-Packard
(HP) Australia. The development of this publication
has been supported by the contribution of non-staff
related on-costs and administrative support by the
Centre for Environment and Systems Research (CESR)
at Griffith University, under the supervision of Professor
Bofu Yu, and both the Fenner School of Environment
and Society and Engineering Department at the Australian
National University, under the supervision of Professor
Stephen Dovers.
Expert review and mentoring: Expert review
and mentoring for the Sustainable IT Lecture Series
has been received from Mike Dennis, The Australian
National University; Scott Evans, Pitcher Partners
Consultants and the Australian Information Industry
Association; Bruce Scott, Griffith University; Chenobu
Thong, Hewlett-Packard Australia; Michael Wagner,
Hewlett-Packard Australia; Malcolm Wolski, Griffith
University; and Tom Worthington, The Australian National
University and the Australian Computer Society.
Citation: Stasinopoulos,
P., Hargroves, K., Smith, M., Desha, C. and Hargroves,
S. (2008) Sustainable IT: Reducing Carbon Footprint
and Materials Waste in the IT Environment, The
Natural Edge Project (TNEP), Australia.
References
[1]
CDW (2008) Four out of Five IT Decision Makers
Value Green IT, CDW. Available at http://newsroom.cdw.com/news-releases/news-release-07-23-08.html.
Accessed 3 August 2008. (Back)
[2]
Centre for Sustainable Design website – Sustainable
Service Systems (3S): Transition Towards Sustainability?
at http://cfsd.org.uk./events/tspd6/tspd6_3s_cases.html.
Accessed 30 July 2008; Heiskanen, E. and Jalas, M.
(2003) ‘Can services lead to radical eco-efficiency
improvements - A review of the debate and evidence’,
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, no. 10, pp. 186-198.
(Back)
[3]
Hockerts, K. (1999) and Schrader, U. (1999) cited
in Centre for Sustainable Design website – Sustainable
Service Systems (3S): Transition Towards Sustainability?
at http://cfsd.org.uk./events/tspd6/tspd6_3s_cases.html.
Accessed 30 July 2008.
(Back)
[4]
In ITSM, vendors help customers manage their IT resources,
usually through a framework for IT activities. ITSM
can be more effective through a vendor since many
customers lack the expertise to manage large, complex
IT systems.
(Back)
[5]
SOA is a software architecture in which software services
are accessible to customers over a network, usually
the Internet, while being hosted externally. Customers
specify the software services required and vendors
make them available.
(Back)
[6]
In IT leasing, customers lease IT products from vendors.
The vendors maintain ownership and responsibility
of the products.
(Back)
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