Building green IT in organisations
Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman NASSCOM and Dy Chairman and MD Zensar Technologies
Building green IT in organisations
What the next big thing that’s waiting to hit organizations around the world as they prepare for the expected and unanticipated challenges involved in attaining and sustaining success in a fast changing world? It’s not the US recession or even the alarming decline of the US dollar but the need to be green!
Predictably, it was an IT CEO who threw down the gauntlet not so long ago when Michael Dell promised to make his company carbon neutral and outlined the many means available to make that happen. Since then CEOs and consultants alike have been scurrying around to understand the implications of carbon credits and trying to develop a point of view ion both the threat and the opportunity posed by the green imperative. Environment consciousness has suddenly moved out of cosy drawing rooms where Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was watched and discussed to the heat of the Board room where the new imperative is being analysed and its implications understood.
A recent reporter by leading analyst firm Forrester Research and some typical irreverent writing by celebrated columnist Tom Friedman have thrown light on the Green IT challenge for organizations as well as the opportunity for the IT sector in this country. Building green IT applications calls for energy efficient designs with data centre servers conserving power and incorporating automatic shutout and shutdown mechanisms in their power and energy management systems. Proactive approaches towards the elimination of hazardous materials well before legislation in various countries places statutory limitations in equipment design is one way to ensure greener designs. And in the manufacturing chain as well, use of more energy efficient manufacturing processes and energy saving transportation and logistics minimizes the environmental impact. Management of computing environments in offices as well as large data centers with maximum attention to energy saving and reduction of environment harming practices can make green computing a reality everywhere. Physical relocation of data centers to less energy sensitive locations can also help in reducing environmental impact while careful planning of practices and procedures for disposal of e-waste and educating the entire supply chain on the need to incorporate green practices into their design, production and transportation systems can ensure that IT does its bit in the greening or organizations and communities.
Tom Friedman’s argument that the E2K opportunity for the IT firms may be as large as the original Y2K or Year 2000 software bug that legitimized the entire offshore outsourcing industry may be a trifle exaggerated but as corporation around the world embrace the need to be carbon neutral, mechanisms for planning and controlling the balance of carbon credits in functions, departments and organizations could well throw up enormous system design and management challenges which can be addressed as consulting and system design opportunities by the knowledge industry. The good news is that green practices are slowly being recognised as an imperative around the world, and if that presents an opportunity for green IT, who is complaining?
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