Chief Information Officers Can Lead or Play Catch-Up

By Richard Hodges, GreenIT

Like it or not, a new challenge is headed your way: eco-responsibility for IT. As a recent CIO article noted, "In most enterprises the CIO has played a minimal role in decisions that affect the environment. For the most part, no one has asked them to do anything more. But sooner rather than later, someone–your boss, a big customer or a government agency–is going to want to know what you're doing to comply with, support, or advance your company's efforts to become more environmentally responsible."

Handling this new responsibility along with everything else that IT must manage will be tough. But there's good news: the sustainability challenge presents CIOS with the opportunity to take initiative and demonstrate leadership for the entire enterprise in what is going to be an important and ongoing issue for this century.

In case you require some convincing about the immediacy of the challenge, consider the following:

Climate Change: Much of the world has already begun to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Accords, and much tougher standards are on the way. In the United States, both federal and state legislation is likely in the very near future; some cities and counties have already implemented action plans on climate issues. You can expect more requirements for collecting and reporting environmental data (similar to the audits required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act).

Energy Efficiency: Data centers–as an industry–are the seventh-largest consumers of energy in the United States, and Congress is considering legislation to mandate their efficiency. In parts of New York and London, more power for data centers simply isn't available, at any price. A recent report states that U.S. businesses waste $1.72 billion annually on electricity consumed by PCs left on overnight. Large enterprises, such as Google, are beginning to choose data center sites based on power price and availability, not on labor force and proximity.

Hazardous Waste: In the European Union, the Restriction of Hazardous Substances and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directives are already in place; the new Energy-using Products (EuP) directive, which governs eco-design, goes into effect this summer. In the United States, dozens of states are considering legislation on e-waste and universal waste (also called u-waste); and this year may see a new federal e-waste law as well. Costs and restrictions for handling all kinds of wastes are rising quickly, as is consumer awareness of the environmental effects of disposal. Pictures of burning piles of computers or data cables tended by women and children in poor countries make an unforgettable impression.

Natural Resources: IT consumes an extensive amount of natural resources. Silicon chips and IT components consume large amounts of many scarce and valuable materials, from arsenic to zinc. We mine coal to generate electricity. We use products for too brief life spans, then dispose of them, increasing their presence in landfills. Requirements for eco-responsibility will rapidly be driven down the supply chain by companies with environmentally oriented purchasing policies and other standards such as ISO14000.

The combined impact of all these issues on IT will be substantial, affecting reporting requirements, operating procedures, purchasing policies, system designs, business location decisions, and, of course, budgets.

How to Be an Eco-Leader

Take the first step to leadership on eco-responsibility by getting educated on the problems and trends. Analysts at Gartner Research, Forrester Research, and the 451 Group have produced topical and in-depth reports on green, sustainable, or eco-efficient computing. Vendors are beginning to produce useful materials, including the recent white paper from Cisco entitled "Why IT Must Take a Lead in Greening the Enterprise". Trade publications and Web sites provide coverage of IT environmental issues, as do specialized environmental webzines that cover IT issues.

Your second step should be to develop a thoughtful, structured approach to eco-responsibility. IT system vendors are rapidly developing green programs and messages for their products, from Dell's "Plant a Tree for Me" campaign to IBM's "Big Green" initiative. But these and other programs focus too narrowly on specific product areas, whether PCs, data centers, or power management. Enterprises need to develop a comprehensive, systematic approach to assess, prioritize, and then execute on an overall plan. That is the only way to produce consistent and documented results over time (it's not unlike the way you have to deal with major regulatory and compliance challenges). The process should start with a baseline assessment of systems and performance, and proceed to a prioritized list of solutions that target specific, measurable (and documented) goals.

Why Be an Eco-Leader?

The why of being an eco-leader is simple: it can save you money, reduce risk, and demonstrate that your enterprise is socially responsible. Being energy efficient, designing systems that use longer-lived equipment, and eliminating waste can actually cost less than what you do now. Vendors such as IBM and Fujitsu-Siemens are "guaranteeing" that they can reduce data center costs and space by 40-50 percent. On the downside, consider the damage to brand-equity if "surplus" equipment turns up in the news as overseas e-waste or as the source of sensitive customer data.

In the bigger picture, IT is destined to be the enabling tool for many enterprise wide environmental solutions: greener buildings, reduced auto and air travel, less waste from operations, and improved energy efficiency. Cisco, for example, has proven that its Connected Workspace can cut by half the amount of workspace required per employee, which reduces cost and produces significant environmental benefits. CIOs need to become eco-leaders by proving they can manage the eco-footprint of their own operation, and then showing the rest of the enterprise how it's done.