Everyone seems to be working on becoming ‘green’. Or at least they are thinking about a good story when the CEO decides he wants to mount the environmentally-conscious hobby horse, so he can ride it to the next shareholders’ meeting. But what does being green really mean?
It seems that many IT world people, and those in the business world generally, treat being green as an inconvenience rather than a serious responsibility. Just consider this sentence from an industry publication: “Going green doesn't have to be just an exercise in tree hugging. It can have a positive effect on your company's budget, too."
The reference to ‘tree hugging’ is shorthand for something along the lines of ‘things that crazy hippies who enjoy drum circles do’, while the conclusion about being good for your budget reduces the concept to, at best, basic self-interest.
While there are indeed potential cost savings that can come from making environmental concerns part of your IT strategy, there's the bigger issue of doing so because it is the right thing to do.
Now, there's no doubt doing ‘the right thing’ was traditionally a concept at odds with the focus of most corporations. Corporations, in general, and particularly very large organisations, exist primarily to make profit as their first, second, and third priorities. This means most social and cultural values are distant runners-up.
Public sentiment
What's starting to change this attitude towards ‘greening’ is the evolving public sentiment and governmental pressure, and only the most arrogant corporations are willing to ignore the obvious social demand to be proactive about environmental responsibilities.
But that's the problem: Much being done is just for the appearance of doing something—a programme here, a programme there. You might argue that is better than nothing and, to some extent you may be right, but here's my concern: the consequences. If, for example, you virtualise servers to save power but then go and buy PCs that aren't designed to be recycled, that's not really being green. It's that lack of analysis that's the problem.
A couple of years ago when the greening of IT was first becoming an issue, I interviewed a hosting provider that shall remain nameless. This company's big pitch was it was really, really green. They told me about how they purchased the power to run part of their operation through renewable energy credits, a scheme for purchasing electricity indirectly from renewable resources. OK, but that doesn't mean you are green, just that you are supporting a green initiative while you could still be squandering the power by using it inefficiently.
They also told me how their roof and car park were covered with solar cells which supplied the rest of their power needs. "Sounds good," I said, "But tell me, have you done a life-cycle analysis?"
Difficult questions
What I wanted to know was whether they had actually factored in all of the products and services they used from acquisition to disposal so they could prove they were being realistically environmentally responsible. For example, had they considered the cost and environmental impact when the time came to dispose of their solar cells? Nope, they had done none of this and so their green pitch was essentially meaningless.
It's this sort of birth to death analysis that determines whether you're serious and, once again, it's the difference between a tactical approach and a real strategy.
So is your company treating becoming environmentally responsible as a real strategy or through a set of disconnected tactics? Are you on the road to becoming "green" or merely becoming "greenish"?
