Fortunately therefore, there were no Vulcans in the room when just weeks later Quocirca was present at a different vendor’s customer pitch and there on slide three was a polar bear looking decidedly worried about the rather small size of the iceberg upon which it perched. Meanwhile yet another vendor, which goes as far as having the dreaded five letter “G” word as part of its moniker, stated during a recent conversation that their efforts weren’t at all focused on sustainability strategies, but rather only on efficiency. Clearly, no linkage there then.
Which reasonably leads us to the question “Is there really any value in GreenIT beyond marketing and greenwash?” Appreciating that this question could perhaps best be answered with a loud “Nyet” roared out somewhat like a terrified polar bear might, it is nevertheless worth delving into. Technology buyers, technology users, strategists and mere analysts alike will all have to evaluate the merits of the various “green” claims we have already been and will continue to be bombarded with in the coming years.
Let’s look at the case against there being any value, which is also the easiest to make. It is apparent to most everyone that just as the overuse of SOX as a marketing message was beginning to smell ripe, it was supplanted by an almost ubiquitous and sweet smelling emerald sheen. Much of this is so transparent in application and over-spun that it needs no further analysis here, but for one point: many IT departments are perhaps just as cynical in their embracing of greenwash as the worst vendor marketeers. After all IT budget requests are more likely to get a green light (pun intended) if they are seen to be supportive of business level efficiency and Green CSR-led strategies. This is the old trick of loading up a business justification with long list of “Oh…and it does this too!” chicanery.
If we look at the case for it gets a lot more interesting, and a lot more challenging to deliver. First, it is worth pointing that the word “green” has been used a lot thus far, and the word “sustainable” hardly at all. This is very deliberate as there is an important distinction between the two given that green has simply become an almost meaningless synonym for “less”, “lite”, or “eco-something”. In comparison by sustainability we refer to the process of living and working in a manner that conserves resources and uses them in an efficient manner, and do so in a way that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own requirements. Furthermore, to contradict many previous writers it is easy being green, but it is a lot harder to be sustainable. So what can IT do to support sustainability?
Whether in the data centre, the IT-enabled office environment, or out in the broader business environment, reducing the resources a business consumes and reuses wherever possible is a perfect play for IT. For example, the concept of a paperless office has been around long enough to be the subject of a long regretted Bill Gates prediction while seemingly little progress has been made. However, there are many real alternatives to eliminating office print load. Quocirca’s research into Managed Print Services is a solid backgrounder to understanding this much-maligned area that can deliver rapid and measurable benefits.
Meanwhile both the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the IEA (International Energy Agency) say that efficiency improvements will deliver major benefits as far as reducing the emissions associated with energy production and consumption. In the short to medium term, the vast majority of businesses will be focused solely on the energy consumption end of that equation. This is an area where IT can contribute strongly due to the relatively high energy appetite of data centres and IT loaded office spaces; as long as several important caveats are understood.
Firstly, energy efficiency is not the sole measure in comparing the environmental impact of a device. For instance Nitrogen Triflouride (NF3), a gas used by most manufacturers of flat screens (but not used to manufacture CRT displays), is estimated by the Australian scientific research organisation CSIRO to be up to 17,000 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Secondly, energy efficiency ratings (like the well known Energy Star) are often relative, not absolute. Take for instance monitor screens: the standard defines an absolute energy consumption level for “sleep” and “off” modes, while the allowed consumption when the monitor is “on” varies in relation to the screen resolution. As an aside, the standard says that a monitor may consume 1 watt in “off” mode, meaning there is a small but real difference between “off” and “unplugged”.
Lastly, a very commonly made mistake is to confuse energy efficiency with energy usage reduction, which is to say that energy efficiency is pretty much useless in the absence of absolute energy usage capping. Whether at the server level or at the data centre level, a lot of the “green” messaging is on the ability to perform the same amount of workload for less energy consumed (both by the servers themselves as well as by associated building environmental control systems such as air-con). This seems all well and good, if it weren’t for the improbably named Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate which basically states that as energy cost per unit of work decreases it becomes more financially viable to perform more units of said work. So unless a business sets absolute targets on the energy usage of IT, efficiency efforts may be wasted at best, while at worst may actually encourage more wasteful use of IT services.
Most importantly IT should do what IT has always done best when governed well: support the strategic efforts of the business. If a business truly has a “sustainability” strategy it will fall to IT to help achieve it, from crunching the numbers that allow it to measure, manage and report performance; telecommuting to avoid travel;, through to analysis and management of supply chain choices. While every CIO needs to get their own house in order as far as efficiency, resource consumption, and recycling goes they are only the tail on the sustainability dog and do not as ever wag the head. A sustainable IT strategy is one that intimately supports a sustainable business strategy and thus can only succeed when owned by the business, and not by IT. In the absence of that business leadership any effort by IT is laudable but lamentably doomed to deliver little real value – in short sustainable IT can only truly exist in the presence of a sustainable business strategy.
