Keith White, IT Infrastructure, PA Consulting

 As companies seek to limit their carbon footprints, many are finding that IT accounts for a significant, indirect source of greenhouse gas emissions. Keith White asks if the new green imperative provides a rationale for a comprehensive refresh of IT systems, with all the promises and pitfalls that this brings.

Your organisation wants to get greener and the spotlight has, not unreasonably, turned on the IT function (as a perceived heavy user of energy) to lead the way. You also want to ensure that - necessary as this change is - it is affordable, the business case is sound, and it meets with approval of stakeholders or shareholders.

Where do you look first to realise your organisation's full green potential while at the same time balancing the cost of change?

IT always seems to be one place that comes under pressure when cost reduction and other efficiency drives are underway, and in the 'green' drive the current climate puts IT at the forefront of environmental impact.

The 'big ticket items', like data centres, simply eat up energy, and anything that can be done to reduce energy consumption will help to contain energy costs. With vendors and service providers queuing up to 'help' us address this waste, surely doing so will be relatively inexpensive, making the business case straightforward and the 'green' results transparent? 

However, in selecting changes to be pursued we need to make an assessment, both in terms of financial investment and technological and organisational change. The fact that vendors and service providers are lining up to sell us their equipment or services because of their 'green' effect perhaps should give us pause for thought. Are they really the best places to make our 'green' investment?

In addition, while the focus is on the environmental impact of the IT function, are we missing the green potential within all of our business operations? Potentially, the IT function is well placed to help the organisation realise the change without having to separately fund a special green technology overhaul.

Some changes are easy, we just need to get round to doing them. For example, set printers to print double-sided on recycled paper, use sensor technologies to automatically switch off lights or even PCs and other equipment. However, if we look across the business it's evident that we are slow in taking advantage of these 'low-hanging' fruit. The challenge is not one of capability but of behaviour, incentive and opportunity. Just as we know that cars are a major contributor to CO2 emissions and that we should walk rather than make that short journey, we still use the car as it is quicker and more convenient. So, addressing the green issue in business, as in any other aspect of life, is as much about behaviour as it is about technology.

So how are we going to make the change? Should we have green initiatives to look at the ways our business can be made more carbon-efficient and set up a special 'green programme'? The answer should be no. Introducing individual initiatives will not ultimately work since they separate the importance of getting carbon-efficient from the everyday imperative of being an efficient business. Unless we make carbon efficiency part of 'business as usual' it will always be thought of as an optional luxury and an excuse to seek more cost reductions in the IT estate. As a result, there will be a series of one-off projects, which might have initial short-term benefits but which ultimately are limited in what they can deliver for the investment made. Instead, we need to make green choices as part of the business choices we make, and put a 'green thread' into all our business strategies and business change projects.

PA's view is that 'getting greener' is a form of business transformation that organisations need to address in the same way as any other business change. IT will have its own part to play in dealing with the environmental impact of the technology deployed and replacements need to be prioritised with a green view (for example, through green selection criteria as part of the technology refresh cycle), but IT transformation can also be a significant enabler to other green business transformation. Choices need to be made about how business change can be achieved, which makes the business, as a whole, greener; it's not just about low-energy IT. Making these choices will require blending a wide range of environmental, technological and commercial insights to create a compelling case for change. In this way, organisations can become more sustainable and achieve business benefits at the same time.

As we do this we need to be aware of the potential contradictions:

• Bringing forward a refresh to introduce energy-efficient technology may appear attractive. However, what is the carbon cost of the reduced equipment lifetime that an early green refresh might provide? Especially given the energy and natural resource requirements of manufacturing the IT equipment in the first place and moving it along the supply chain to the data centre or the end-user?
• Getting people to work at home might reduce our office carbon footprint, but in doing so it might increase their carbon footprint at home. In the process, we could be increasing our overall carbon footprint.
• Using recycled paper in the office is an easy thing to do, but do we know where that paper has come from? Flying in cheap recycled paper from around the world will create more carbon emissions than we save by using it.

Developing new ways of working may require new IT services that increase the carbon footprint of our IT function, but if they reduce the overall carbon footprint of business activity, whilst increasing operational efficiency or delivering against our business goals, it is probably a better business choice.

A question that will arise is, 'How do we get the business to accept new ways of working?' This, however, could mislead. Our contention is that we should not be doing anything specifically and only to address the green issue. Instead, we should ensure that green criteria are embedded in to our project and business change choices. This will mean adapting our design authority processes to consider green criteria within our technology design and IT architecture, assessing business process change from a green point of view, and challenging our business architecture and operating models as we seek to make business changes to enable a greener way of working. Ultimately, in business any change needs to stand and fall on its business case, therefore our business case models need to be able to 'value' the contribution to the green issues, just as we also assess and value contributions to other 'semi-intangibles' such as corporate reputation.

The green question, tackled properly, challenges all of our business operations, not just our IT function, and the answer to addressing it comes by placing environmental impact on an equal footing within our business decisions, and especially our change programmes. IT, therefore, is once again a key business partner in enabling us to address the change requirements, making our business both more successful and more environmentally friendly. Going green really need not cost the earth.

Keith White is senior consultant at IT Infrastructure. Keith's primary focus is the delivery of IT-enabled business transformation within procurement, supply chain and logistics. He has experience in business transformation, organisational and business change management and solution, and business architecture development and systems design, gained through 20 years in IT. Keith also leads PA's IT Infrastructure Transformation Service Line with a particular strength in technology implementation and deployment.