That line of reasoning applies to CIOs as much as IT vendors and software companies, and some industries are already rising to the challenge.
"In Australia, the prolonged drought has brought a greater focus on the issue of global warming and long-term sceptics are announcing a change of heart," says Leith Campbell, principal consultant at telecomms, software and IT consulting firm Ovum.
Lawson Software vice president of marketing Jeff Frank predicts responsibility for green business practices will eventually be placed squarely in the lap of the CIO. Like any other business problem, the organization initially tries to manage its eco-responsibilities in a piecemeal, fragmented and manual way before realizing that that approach does not work, he says. When things start to fall apart they then turn to IT and the CIO to lead the charge on managing programs and bringing information together in the interest of better decision making.
"Ultimately, the CIO is going to really be one of the driving forces behind how companies manage their green business practices and corporate social responsibility programs," Frank says. "What CIOs should expect from their business application providers are really the tools to bring together the fragmented programs that they're trying to manage today into an integrated dashboard that would allow the CIO and decision makers across the company to better manage their CSR [corporate social responsibility] and green business practice in a more integrated manner."
And they should also expect and be prepared to change their own approaches and thinking. "When a CIO decides to go green in response to global warming, a change in thinking needs to precede a change in corporate decision making," says Judah Freed, the author of Global Sense. "A chief information officer familiar with general systems theory already thinks of his or her organization as an interconnected network. Going green means seeing that organization interacting within the wider planetary system, so the green CIO wants to ensure the information network truly makes global sense.
"Beyond videoconferencing instead of air travel, beyond component recycling instead of throwing away obsolete computers and other enterprise technology, the CIO can choose among a range of options," Freed says.
But as Chris Homer, vice president sales and marketing and legislative affairs with environmental management software solution company EnvironMax, notes, any efforts by the CIO will go nowhere without support from the top. "The first and most critical requirement is for a CIO to make it a point to secure executive buy-in and subsequent budgetary commitments to green initiatives," he says. "In my experience, technology funding for environmental issues within corporations is almost always at the bottom of the list. Companies don't fund green initiatives — generally speaking — until there's a problem, such as EPA or OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the US] fines, or a PR-based need, such as consumer or environmentalist-based complaints or concerns, for change.
"The handful of CIOs who are visionary in this area, and make the effort and proactive commitment to the environmental impacts of their organizations, are the ones who are well ahead of the game in terms of positively affecting the environment, presenting their companies as good citizens and realizing cost savings and bottom line positive results to their financials," Homer says.
Technology companies have of late been focusing more on green technology: designing computer processors that generate less heat, building systems that better manage electricity use in data centres and improving manufacturing processes and recycling old computers. The non-profit consortium called The Green Grid, with its blue-chip list of charter members including Intel, AMD, Sun, IBM and VMware, has released guidelines on energy-efficient data centres, even as TechNet — a network of tech company CEOs — looks to enhance energy research and find technology-driven solutions.
The moves make excellent business sense. Gartner recently reported that regulations, costs and global warming were driving European IT leaders to "green" data centres. In October last year Gartner analysts in Europe called on IT organizations to curb computing's insatiable appetite for energy. Organizations are under mounting pressure to develop greener approaches towards their IT practices, and IT and business leaders need to wake up to the issues of escalating energy consumption and environmental legislation, the research company says.
"IT's age of innocence is nearing an end," says Steve Prentice, distinguished analyst and chief of research at Gartner. "Technology's clean and friendly 'weightless economy' image is being challenged by its growing environmental footprint. While a growing number of regulations are already increasing the end-of-life costs for IT equipment, IT also has to face mounting concerns over spiralling electrical power consumption."
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.