Today, technology plays a critical role in addressing environmental sustainability challenges. It contributes to reducing resource consumption, minimizing waste generation, as well as promoting renewable energy sources, thereby enabling more efficient and sustainable practices across different sectors.
Role of Sustainability in IT Infrastructure
Today, sustainability is increasingly important not just for the planet but for businesses and the customers they serve. Operating a business in an environmentally sustainable and responsible manner presents many benefits, such as cost reduction through sustainable IT practices, thereby enabling businesses to reduce their energy consumption, waste, and other costs, as well as minimizing their environmental impact.
Cloud computing also plays an equally significant role in improving the environmental sustainability of IT infrastructure. Cloud providers provide efficient data centers that help businesses in reducing their energy consumption and waste. Smart infrastructure helps reduce energy consumption due to the integration of efficient devices and servers. The higher operational efficiency of cloud data centers is a result of consolidated usage and high utilization, making it more efficient. This helps in reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
Read more: Sustainable Framework: How can Organizations Make Generative AI Green?
Businesses relying on the public cloud are able to scale their IT resources whenever needed, thus reducing waste and energy consumption. By continuously optimizing hardware for better performance, businesses can also optimize their power consumption. These practices equip businesses to protect the planet and mitigate the effects of climate change while attracting environmentally conscious customers and achieving the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals.
For an organization’s sustainability initiatives to thrive, sustainability cannot be a label or the initiative of a single department within the enterprise. Sustainability must be woven into every operation and be perceived as a strategic priority for all. This implies that businesses must set specific sustainability goals and integrate sustainability into their work culture and training.
Building a Sustainable IT Environmental
Sustainability encloses a societal goal of supporting ecological balance and fulfilling current needs without impacting natural resources. Sustainable development in the context of an organization and its ecosystem is used to define the processes, initiatives, and pathways employed to achieve sustainability at the global level.
-
Hardware and software procurement to increase energy efficiency and reduce environmental impact.
-
Integration of data management practices to reduce the amount of stored and processed data.
-
Using software development practices to promote energy efficiency and reduce waste.
-
Optimize solutions to improve energy efficiency.
-
Implement practices to extend IT assets’ lifecycle and dispose of them sustainably.
-
Consolidate data centers to reduce energy consumption.
-
Implementing identity management systems to reduce carbon emissions.
For IT, several best practices have emerged to encourage sustainable goals. Environmental sustainability in IT focuses on reducing the environmental impact of IT operations by incorporating environmentally focused approaches for the manufacture and disposal of technology assets, designing energy-efficient hardware and software, and reducing energy consumption.
Read more: ESG Outlook: How Tech Companies Harness Data to Reimagine Their Business
Steps to Improve Environmental Sustainability Through Green IT
Auditing the current IT practices and appointing specific sustainability goals enabled businesses to implement sustainable or green IT practices.
-
Assessing the Existing Situation
The first step is understanding the current IT infrastructure and environmental performance within the organization. Businesses can use sustainable tools and frameworks to measure and monitor their energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and other relevant indicators. This will help in identifying their strengths and weaknesses, as well as new opportunities for improvement and innovation.
-
Setting Goals and Priorities
The next step is to define the sustainability goals and priorities for IT infrastructure. Businesses can align their objectives with their organizational vision and values, along with external standards and regulations. By adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the EU Green Deal as reference points for their IT infrastructure decisions, businesses can integrate frameworks to balance their economic, environmental, as well as social objectives.
-
Choosing the Right Strategies and Solutions
The third critical step is selecting the right strategies that can assist in achieving sustainability goals and priorities for IT infrastructure. Businesses can start by reducing energy consumption by optimizing their hardware, software, and network configurations, integrating virtualization or cloud computing, or implementing smart power management systems. Additionally, switching to renewable energy sources or green energy solutions can help lower the carbon footprint and support clean energy production. Minimizing waste generation and maximizing waste recovery can also be achieved by embracing circular economy principles.
Read more: 10 Most Sustainable Cities in the USA: Sustainable Outlook 2023
-
Monitoring and Evaluating the Progress
The final step involves monitoring the performance and evaluating the progress on sustainability and environmental factors for IT infrastructure. Businesses can use tools and frameworks that help in assessing the current situation along with additional metrics and indicators that are relevant to their specific goals and priorities. They can incorporate feedback and reporting mechanisms to communicate the results and achievements to external stakeholders. By integrating sustainability and environmental factors into IT infrastructure decisions, businesses can not only reduce their environmental impact but also enhance their operational efficiency and innovation potential.
How IT Asset Management Can Support ESG Efforts
IT asset management (ITAM) can play a critical role in supporting ESG efforts by providing data and insights that can be used to optimize energy and environmental impact. The generated data can be used to track energy consumption and monitor progress toward sustainability goals.
Multiple teams across organizations, including cloud, FinOps, security, and ESG, can leverage data from ITAM teams and tools. to guide business-wide initiatives in multiple ways. These can include implementing FinOps to reduce cloud energy consumption, implementing power management to save energy and money, and re-evaluating existing activities through the lens of sustainability.
To ensure that sustainability initiatives are easily woven throughout the organization, businesses can introduce systems to track energy use and carbon emissions. By conducting regular audits and using ITAM data, they can further identify areas for improvement. Regular monitoring and reviewing the effectiveness of IT sustainability practices will help ensure that the organization is progressing toward its sustainability goals.
Read more: Big Data Analytics: Turning Data into Actionable Insights
Final Thoughts
Social sustainability in IT helps ensure that technology is used to benefit society. This incorporates providing access to technology and supporting the development of local communities. Governance sustainability in IT is all about adherence to laws and regulations. To foster transparency in protecting the privacy and security of user data and supporting the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence.
Organizations need to foster an environment that significantly focuses on strategies to improve environmental sustainability. This can be determined through actions taken by those who live in the given environment and through operational infrastructure. With a greater impact on resources, businesses can integrate strategies required to achieve sustainability for years to come.
SG Analytics, recognized by the Financial Times as one of APAC's fastest-growing firms, is a prominent insights and analytics company specializing in data-centric research and contextual analytics. Operating globally across the US, UK, Poland, Switzerland, and India, we expertly guide data from inception to transform it into invaluable insights using our knowledge-driven ecosystem, results-focused solutions, and advanced technology platform. Our distinguished clientele, including Fortune 500 giants, attests to our mastery of harnessing data with purpose, merging content and context to overcome business challenges. With our Brand Promise of "Life's Possible," we consistently deliver enduring value, ensuring the utmost client delight.
A leader in ESG Services, SG Analytics offers bespoke sustainability consulting services and research support for informed decision-making. Contact us today if you are searching for an efficient ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) integration and management solution provider to boost your sustainable performance.
About SG Analytics
SG Analytics is an industry-leading global insights and analytics firm providing data-centric research and contextual analytics services to its clients, including Fortune 500 companies, across BFSI, Technology, Media & Entertainment, and Healthcare sectors. Established in 2007, SG Analytics is a Great Place to Work® (GPTW) certified company and has a team of over 1100 employees and has presence across the U.S.A, the U.K., Switzerland, Canada, and India.
Apart from being recognized by reputed firms such as Analytics India Magazine, Everest Group, and ISG, SG Analytics has been recently awarded as the top ESG consultancy of the year 2022 and Idea Awards 2023 by Entrepreneur India in the “Best Use of Data” category.
