Green IT: Notes from Australia's CIO Network

analysis For some early adopters of Green IT, this trend is now assuming a business as usual status. Followers, on the other hand, may struggle to fund Green IT initiatives in the current economic environment.

(Credit: CIO Network)

Although in the next 12 months sustainability is likely to remain in the top five organisational priorities, lack of benchmarks, standards and regulations make it difficult for companies to translate intentions into actions.

Australian businesses that embarked on the Green IT journey at early stages of this movement have both cut their carbon footprints and made positive changes in their staff environmental awareness.

"Our firm has been moving proactively towards reducing its carbon footprint for many years. The corresponding growth of environmental awareness and activities amongst our people is clear," says Gwenyth Taylor, project management office manager at Allens Arthur Robinson.

"Along with encouraging such activities as participation in Ride to Work day and Earth Hour, firms can inspire their people by demonstrating their commitment to the environment, carrying out initiatives such as using green power, saving and using recycled paper, reducing water use and providing Met tickets for use in Melbourne's CBD, rather than taking taxis."

"While many Green IT issues may not be readily understood, such as server virtualisation and blade servers, many are simple to understand, such as vendor buy-back schemes for all old PCs, or having reduced paper use by 45 per cent over three years."

Followers of the Green IT trend are now facing harsher scrutiny of their projects as priorities become focused on cost-cutting targets.

"By broadcasting the importance to the firm of its environmental impact and those of its suppliers, and making staff aware, and proud, of their firm's achievements in the area, firms can markedly enhance staff morale and loyalty. As an added benefit, we have found in many cases we are also saving money."

In recent years, "Green IT"-labelled initiatives have enjoyed a high priority status, central funding and sponsorship by companies' leaders. Importantly, these programs have resulted in the development of various green policies that have gradually proliferated through corporate IT procurement and property management strategies.

CIO Network research suggests that although in the next 12 months sustainability may slip on the priorities list, it is likely to remain in the top five due to a combination of drivers. The expectations of customers, business partners and staff are likely to maintain the pressure on companies to embrace the green approach to their products and services from both manufacturing and operational perspectives. International trends may further strengthen the sustainability cause in Australia.

In the current economic environment, however, followers of the Green IT trend are now facing harsher scrutiny of their projects as priorities become focused on cost-cutting targets. Companies may struggle to find sufficiently appealing return on investment in Green IT initiatives. Naturally, there is little appetite to experiment with emerging technologies.

Additionally, due to the lack of industry benchmarks, regulations and standards that are credible, easy to understand and apply, organisations have to reinvent a wheel to measure and baseline their carbon footprints.

Strategies for overcoming challenges Green IT currently faces were discussed at a peer forum recently organised by CIO Network. This event brought together representatives from different industries, including financial services, manufacturing, government, utilities and professional services, and was led by Mary Hawkins, a former leading technology executive in the financial services sector. Lessons discussed at the forum included:

• ICT managers should align business cases for their Green IT projects with other corporate strategies and their companies' values, instead of focusing on cost savings alone.


• Developing an environmental risk assessment framework for projects and embedding it in IT governance processes can assist in making eco-friendly technology decisions and reduction of ongoing techno-pollution of the corporate environment.


• Whilst such technologies as virtualisation, cloud computing and blade servers can contribute to the green agenda, higher priority should be given to initiatives targeting changes in work practices and processes. The focus should be on making changes towards more eco-friendly business culture.


• Inclusion of green requirements into request for proposal documents, outsourcing contacts and an overall vendor management strategy is essential for the transparency of the IT-related carbon footprint.


• To sum up, rather than green-washing their ICT (whether in-house or vendor-supplied), organisations may adopt a more integrated approach to eco-friendly business — the one that should bring together product development, distribution, property management, procurement, HR and, of course, ICT.

To address the issue of benchmarking, The CIO Network is currently researching the adoption of Green IT by Australian businesses. The research will provide an insight into such questions as which Green IT initiatives have a positive return on investment, and overall progress against most popular Green IT initiatives (including, servers and storage virtualisation, paper management, datacentre consolidation, power management, etc).

The CIO Network is a peer-to-peer forum for Australian ICT end users, which holds events and provides services with the aim of assisting in CIO decision-making through knowledge sharing, in a vendor-free environment.

These summary notes by CIO Network research director Leila Abbasova are published as part of a collaboration between The CIO Network and ZDNet.com.au and stem from a recent event the group held on Green IT issues.