Cracking open green IT

Green IT has become one of those woolly subjects that encompass such a range of interventions - the desktop, data centre, cloud, supply chain, business processes - that even the most knowledgeable executives are left scratching their heads.

But there's no doubt the world is moving in this direction, and given increasing energy costs, the savings greener computing brings cannot be ignored.

To take this from principle to practice, here are a few pointers from international green IT gurus, speaking in a virtual summit held by business network Focus. The Focus interactive summits bring together industry experts from around the world to discuss topics affecting the corporate agenda, such as the 'Green IT innovation - the next decade' event held last week.

One of the speakers, sustainability advisor at Redemtech and author of 'Green IT for Dummies', Carol Baroudi, stresses the business case for green IT: “Ultimately, green IT is all about efficiencies and those efficiencies will be good for the business independent of whether it's good for the environment. The bottom line is, green IT is a cost-saver.”

'Profitability' is often the magic word that gets buy-in from the top, and for Baroudi, this means thinking of green IT in the context of sustainability.

”It's the infamous bottom line - people, planet, profit. You're looking for a triple win, so it's important to look at green IT from a business perspective, not only a social and environmental perspective.“

She notes that unlike other IT initiatives, it's impossible to keep an arm's length if one's going to pursue green IT. “It's not just another IT project; you're going to have to look at what you know and what you can learn on a constant basis, in order to be able to make intelligent decisions. There's a very steep learning curve.”

Next up, get orientated. Baroudi advises taking a look at one's position in the sustainability journey - is it the newbie who's just getting started, the in-betweener with some basic knowledge, or an experienced know-it-all?

“Then consider where the organisation is. You will be as successful as your organisation allows you to be, so you need to know where it stands - is it an environmental Neanderthal that doesn't even recycle, or a thought leader with a comprehensive strategy and public commitments?”

Don't underestimate the importance of getting educated; it's not just about green IT, it's about building a broader basis in sustainability, says Baroudi. “You need to make friends and allies inside and outside of your organisation, you'll need them everywhere.”

Jim Harris, author of bestselling business book 'Blindsided', gives three reasons for why green IT is essential, the first being its cost-cutting potential.

“We live in a hugely connected world. You have two billion people on the Internet, four billion mobile subscriptions, and one trillion devices connected to the Internet.

“A very simple thing is the issue of standby power. Enacting steps to ensure devices only consume 0.5W in standby mode can have a tremendous impact on reducing electricity load.”

He adds that a recent McKinsey study on the costs of reducing GHG emissions in the US showed 40% of the options needed to lower carbon dioxide (CO2) levels as required to meet the Kyoto Protocol are profitable.

“One of the insights from the McKinsey report is that we don't need a silver bullet, we need silver buckshot,” says Harris, explaining there are thousands of strategies that need to be employed to reduce energy use and the global carbon footprint.

“That's why IT is so important, because IT is a way of corralling, organising, and empowering people to make changes within an organisation.”

The second reason green IT is vital, says Harris, is because it can raise revenue. He explains that major banks like HSBC and Barclays Bank have gone carbon neutral in a move to capture market share in green energy financing, a market worth an estimated $2 trillion by 2030.

Thirdly, it mitigates risk. Here Harris points to the values of the younger generation, with 92% of workers saying they want to work for a 'green' company. The South African Graduate Recruitment Association found in its 2010 candidate survey that along with training and the overall reputation of an employer, three-quarters of participants said the organisation's reputation for ethical behaviour was 'very important' in their decision-making.

“In the competition to attract and retain the brightest and best in terms of talent, if your organisation is not going green, you're going to find it very challenging,“ adds Harris.

Finally, there's the reality many South Africans are already familiar with - rising energy prices. Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, US economist Nouriel Roubini said rapidly rising oil, energy and food prices pose a serious threat to global stability.

“If your organisation is not energy efficient and you're not prepared for this, you're going to be blindsided,” says Harris.

Once a company has decided to follow a more sustainable path, change is often far more complex than anticipated. Harris says one of the common barriers to green IT is divided jurisdiction.

“In most organisations, the electricity bill doesn't go to the IT department; it goes to the facilities department. But it's the CIO and his or her team who are going to have to do the work in terms of implementing virtualisation, power management on the desktop, and SSDs in storage arrays.

We don't need a silver bullet, we need silver buckshot.

Jim Harris, sustainability consultant

“Facilities get the bills, IT gets the work. So why should the CIO and IT department go to all the expense, when the facilities group is going to get all the financial benefits?”

Another factor is that the COI gets punished if there's downtime, security breaches or the system crashes for whatever reason. Nowhere in the reward-punishment dynamic does lowering the company's carbon footprint come into play, explains Harris.

“So until there's alignment in organisations between departments and economic incentives, and CIO bonuses are based on hitting targets for CO2 emissions, don't expect a profound change.”

He believes most companies are only just beginning the journey, and that barriers exist in most organisations. “I don't believe CEOs, CFOs or CIOs know just how much they can save by having a green IT focus. But in terms of reduction, billions of dollars in savings and trillions of pounds of reduced CO2 emissions are very possible.

“None of these implementations are easy because change is difficult. Otherwise everyone would have done it already.”

As with any implementation, it's vital to have a strategy in place when embarking on the road towards sustainability. Baroudi has a few principles to keep in mind. The best pace to start, she says, is at the beginning.

“The most cited mantra of green IT is that you can't manage what you don't measure. Likewise, you can't improve something if you don't have a baseline.

“Sustainability is a journey, not a destination, and when we measure progress we measure against ourselves. Start by measuring and recording where you are to set the ground rules.”

The next step is to quantify the business value. Baroudi notes that in some ways, it's easy to translate something like energy savings into rands and cents, but there are other ways to quantify the value of savings.

“Quantify soft values; that's very important in terms of employee attraction and retention, and customer attraction and retention. New college grads want to work for companies that have meaning to them.”

Another is to quantify the sustainability benefits from all green IT initiatives, including emissions, water, landfill avoidance and so on. All these are ways to quantify sustainability benefits that translate back to business value.

Thirdly: Power down, power off and virtualise.

“So many organisations find that by simply enforcing the turning off of PCs at the end of the day, the energy savings can be dramatic. This reduces emissions, so it's a sustainability win, but it also cuts electricity costs, which continue to rise.”

Stratifying your storage can also bring significant gains, because its true costs are often overlooked, says Baroudi. “Storage isn't free. When you start thinking about all the things going to power in a storage device, you start to think about electricity cost, and that's not free.

“Don't spend money on dead data. If you don't need it, don't keep it in live storage. Save it on tape or CD or DVD.”

The bottom line is, green IT is a cost-saver.

Carol Baroudi, practice advisor for sustainability, Redemtech.

The precept of green IT is eliminating waste, notes Baroudi, which means cutting back on new equipment wherever possible. “Most of the energy in any piece of computer equipment goes into its manufacture. You can extend the life of almost every asset and there is rarely a need for constant, systematic replacement,” she adds.

Another tip: Follow the paper trail. It takes almost 10 litres of water to create new sheet of paper “Think about that paper and think long and hard about whether you need to print. Consider duplex printing or using paper from a forest being taken care of.”

Finally, learn from everything and everybody. “IT touches everyone and you'll be surprised where the best solutions come from. Solicit ideas for improvement from your organisation and look at organisations like your own and unlike your own for ways you can improve.”

According to Baroudi, green IT functions on a continuum, and it's important to see it as an evolving process. “Look at the sleep time of PCs today, power things down today, and virtualisation will be something you look at in the long-run.”

Adopting green IT may bring challenges, but it's really about starting to make changes, even if they're small. Real insanity, as Harris notes, is simply continuing to do what you've always done, and expecting different results.