Article Preview
Top1. Introduction
Green IT is the study and practice of environmentally sustainable computing in organizations. It is an approach to address the growing environmental challenges resulting in detrimental effects to natural resources, increased carbon emissions, and leads to global warming (Bengtsson and Ågerfalk, 2016). These problems are associated with business activities heavily relying on the use of IT. Thus, it resulted in the inception of Green IT (GIT). The goal of GIT is to achieve resource-efficient and low-carbon business activities to minimize its impact on the environment (Loeser et al., 2017. Therefore, GIT remains a significant area of both research and practice.
Previous studies suggest that knowledge of new technology is critical to further technology adoption in organizations (Jenkin et al., 2011; El Idrissi and Corbett, 2016). It is also necessary to understand the role of professionals in the adoption of GIT in organizations and become an integral element of their work culture. Recent information technology (IT) infrastructure spending is crucial to achieving business performance (Chuang and Huang, 2016), however, as this grows, behavioral change among IT professionals is perceived significant to achieve sustainable use of computing resources (Murugesan and Gangadharan, 2012). Therefore, IT professionals have an important role to play in achieving environmental sustainability through their awareness of and practices in GIT in organizations.
The immense perspective to establish the practices of IT users helps to achieve environmental sustainability. More recently, GIT is a global issue for various industries. However, it is also growing concern in developing countries in which lacking educations is observed. The developing countries have been slow in recognizing environmental sustainability concerns and challenges (Hernandez and Ona, 2016; Chugh et al., 2016) in comparison to developed countries with advanced strategies, policies, and technology implementations on GIT. Therefore, developing countries have a significant role to play in GIT adoption (An Hign et al., 2017). It also calls for an urgent introduction to GIT, and take essential actions to engage and increase awareness of employees in organizations.
To date, studies on exploring the awareness of employees in GIT and practices are mostly focused in developed countries. However, a handful of studies investigating this phenomenon in developing countries such as the Philippines is not evident in the literature. Considering the growing economy and population of the country, therefore, this study attempts to fill this gap and offer new insights on GIT awareness and practices of IT professionals, which could be integrated as part of IT professionals’ roles in achieving environmentally sustainable work practices in organizations.
This study aims to present the findings of a survey that explores the environmentally sustainable practices by Philippine IT professionals. To attain the goal of the study, a survey was used to determine the level of awareness and practices in GIT among IT professionals. The remaining parts this research covers the following sections: (2) discussions on the roles of IT professionals in environmental sustainability and overview of the Philippine IT industry, (3) discussion of the research method and considerations in adopting a survey instrument, (4) the results of the study and presentation of findings, (5) discussion of the theoretical and organizational contributions and lastly (6) the conclusions and research limitations are discussed.