Moving Towards a Greener IT

More and more, adherence to environmentally sound practices-and the ability to show measurable results around those practices-is affecting the global partner community. Yet in our work with cloud partners, we often run into organizations that are just beginning to understand the business consequences of not establishing best practices for reducing the impact on the environment.

The IT industry is among the dirtiest in the world, producing about 7% of carbon emissions-more than the airline industry. Data centers, which consume enormous amounts of electricity, are the primary culprits. One click on a website can generate 2 grams of carbon emissions. Every line of code consumes energy. Within 20 years the acceleration of cloud and telecommunications traffic could lead to the industry producing 30% or more of the world's carbon emissions.

This scenario needs to change. ISSI has taken this lesson to heart. After a comprehensive analysis and using tools such as websitecarbon.com, we discovered that our website was dirtier than 72% of all websites globally.

We discovered efficient solutions to address this. For example, by ensuring that our host server uses renewable energy and is optimizing image formats-especially on blog posts like this one-we achieved substantial reductions. Now our website is cleaner than 54% of global pages, all while maintaining quality and content.

It's important to note that there are practical business reasons to move towards a greener IT. An increasing number of commercial customers, government agencies, and NGOs now require sound environmental practices by subcontractors. In some countries you can save on carbon taxes with green policies in place. Finally, we expect the big cloud providers will pressure partners to implement environmentally sound policies.

So where do you start? To be truly effective in "going green", partners need a comprehensive, long term green strategy with policies and roadmaps. To get there, you need to carefully evaluate topics such as your company's ESG history and background; the ROI and other business drivers for implementing green practices; governance principles; community involvement and development; KPI measuring and reporting; and development of compliance systems.

A commitment to using environmental best practices and developing greater awareness for who shares those practices throughout the industry will only help your business in the long term. It will enhance your reputation, improve operational efficiency, help risk mitigation, boost customer confidence, and potentially help your profitability over the long term.

For more information about how ISSI can help you create a greener IT business, contact: sales@issi-inc.com