Greening Your Business Through Technology - WITSA

4Next StepsPillar 1: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, waste and water use withinthe span of control of the ICT departmentThe first pillar outlines good practices for the ICT department to put its own ICT house in order.This pillar deals with practices within the span of control of the office of the CIO. The ICTdepartment has to be credible and ‘walk the walk’ by taking every possible step towards improvingthe environmental sustainability of the ICT department itself before it can engage credibly andproductively with the rest of the enterprise as to how technology can contribute to broaderenvironmental sustainability goals.The IT Industry accounted for approximately 2 percent of Global CO 2 emissions in 2007 6 . However,more recent estimates have calculated that this could be as high as 6-8 percent when indirectsources are also included (please refer to Section 1.2 Letter from Bob Hayward, Director AIIANational GreenIT Taskforce, 2009).Pillar 2: ICT department contributions to measuring and reporting enterprisegreenhouse gas emissions, waste and water useThe second pillar details the need for the ICT department to collaborate with environmentalmanagers within the enterprise in order to construct an entirely new class of enterprise applicationfor non-financial management information. It has taken enterprises many decades to reach thecurrent level of sophistication of financial reporting. Within the next few years, enterprises will berequired to track emissions, waste and water use across their entire value chain to the same levelof detail and rigour with which financial data is tracked today.ICT management needs to partner with the appropriate business units in the development ofsolutions for environmental sustainability which should include adequate capture, measurement,monitoring and reporting of non-financial indicators for both internal and external audiences.This data will come under increasing scrutiny and will eventually have to be assured and audited.Pillar 3: ICT department contributions to reducing greenhouse gasemissions, waste and water use within core enterprise processesThe third pillar requires ICT management to engage with the enterprise to identify ways inwhich technology can be used to reduce emissions, waste and water use across core businessprocesses. Paradoxically, good results here may require an increase in the emissions of ICTitself, yet these should be more than offset by the gains to be had across the entire enterprise.This is one area where ICT management can contribute ideas and support to help with thechallenge of reducing the other 98 percent of the world’s emissions not directly attributableto the ICT industry 7 .6 Gartner, ‘GreenIT: The New Industry Shockwave’, Presentation at Symposium/ITXPO conference, April 20077 - Section 1 – Letter from Bob Hayward – Director AIIA National GreenIT Taskforce, 2009)Page 27