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 Ollie Ross from The Corporate IT Forum has written an article on the uptake of green technologies in the UK corporate setting and suggested how the adoption of green IT can be accelerated. The answer: make it more affordable.
It seems a fairly straightforward solution. As she says, “At The Corporate IT Forum, we know that many IT chiefs would go green if the financial barriers for adoption were taken away.” So, the desire is there, it’s just the budget that’s holding some corporations back.
But is that really the case? Does it take “large sums of money” to go green? As Ross herself mentions, basic energy-saving initiatives and better management of business consumables is essentially free – things like installation of computer power saving features, and more careful use and recycling of printer paper.
Yet, is there such a high cost to some of the other measures mentioned in the article? “Collaborative working tools and presence technologies to cut the need for travel” may cost money to purchase and implement, but what about the money saved on the travel that is now no longer required?
Yes, buying energy from renewable sources and investing in recycling projects costs money, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if these things were less expensive, more people would make use of them, but these are things that are over and above what’s currently needed in order to make a significant contribution to the green IT push.
In meetings where senior IT members met to discuss environmental issues, The Corporate IT Forum found that “there are a range of differing attitudes between organisations that consider green computing to be a strategic business issue and the organisations that do not.” And I think, more than money, that’s what it comes down to. Even if green technologies were given away for free, some companies won’t go to the trouble to implement them if they feel it’s going to do nothing for them from a business perspective. And that’s sad.
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Green Dave
Thursday, 21 February 2008
The majority of IT people suffer from institutionalized mental lethargy and at times are directly opposed to having to relearn their jobs and adapt to new ideas. If a reportedly 'green' technology is available for the same price or lower, then we would assume that this would promote adoption. Incorrect. Most CTOs are simply stuck in a moment. And here's why.
Take the example of client computing - the idea of having an office full of PCs with data and services locally stored makes absolutely no sense in this day and age when server - client computing and virtualization have improved so much. Client computing would save $$, help the planet and make a lot of IT jobs obsolete. Turkeys voting for Christmas? You bet. This is what is holding back the green revolution in enterprise. IT has its own interests at heart. Not the interests of the planet we live on.