Adopting Green ICT in Business

Measuring Environmental Impact of IT

Most respondents and organizations are considering planning, executing a measurement program to better understand environmental impact of IT. Dramatically increased energy use driven by the rapid expansion of data centers has increased IT costs, and the resulting environmental impact of IT, to new levels. Enterprise data centers can easily account for than 50 percent of a company’s energy bill and approximately half of the corporate carbon footprint. In the U.S., the power consumption costs for data center computing and cooling doubled to $4.5 billion between 2000 to 2006. It expected to double again by 2011. Although energy use and its associated cost has been the key driver for green computing, a growing appreciation of the risks of climate change and increasing concerns about energy. In addition to corporate self interest, government regulations will increasingly drive the adoption of green computing and sustainable IT investment and practices. Ecological issues involving IT product and service design, supply chain optimization, and changes in processes to deal with e-waste, pollution, usage of critical resources such as water, toxic materials, and the air shed will need to be more fully addressed. Although these first-wave activities are driven more by cost-reduction-based business value there is growing potential for green IT products and services being the deciding factor in terms of the intangible benefits of “greenness” to the customer. Vendors are now able to position products and services in terms of energy consumption and lower costs, but the real benefit over time may be in positioning on environmental and social responsibility of the company itself.