¿Que diablos es Green IT?

¿Que diablos es Green IT?

Like some of our readers (or perhaps not) our first reaction to Green IT was: an important, clean, complicated and intangible technology that makes a significant impact on the way we interact with our electronics devices.  We were inclined to believe that the responsibility of being green in the field of technology was in the hands of corporations.  However, upon further investigation, we were tasked with discovering the truth about Green IT.  Our team found that we were partially right, but unfortunately we missed the heart of the issue.  We realized that all of us are responsible for our IT consumption and we can all impact the management of resources.  In a nutshell, according to an article by Laurie McCabe from Computing.com on the subject[1], Green IT is consciously reducing the consumption in all areas related to information technology in order to efficiently manage resources (energy, materials disposal, printed paper, etc.) and avoid unnecessary waste.  This sounds good, so what’s the issue?

 ¿Cual es el problema amigo?

Are you guilty of printing 25 pages of material when you really only needed the first 2 pages?  Are you guilty of leaving your computer on when you go out to lunch or leave the office?  How considerate were you with your work computer vs. your personal laptop?  Do you notice a significant difference on how you behaved at work in terms of IT resource consumption vs. at your own home when it impacted your pocket book?  Be honest, we won’t tell anyone.  The truth is that most of us may act more “carelessly” in regards to IT consumption in our work environments since it is not our Euros on the line.  We believe that careless consumption of IT resources is one of the reasons why companies have an incentive to go green.   According to Computing.com, Green IT leads to significant cost savings, “…by 2012, experts estimate that for every dollar you spend on a server, it will cost $1 to power and cool it”[1].  Multiply this by the number of servers a company may have, and the cost starts to add up quickly.  

However, besides the monetary impact of saving a couple of bucks, Green IT also has considerable benefits to our environment.  To put this in better perspective, according to a report by McKinsey and Company, datacenters produce 3% of the world’s CO2 emissions, the airline industry contributes to 6% and the steel industry 1% (data from 2008).[2]  It is shocking to grasp the fact that our IT datacenters alone are producing half the amount of CO2 emissions as the world’s airplanes.  In Laurie’s article she mentions that the US Environmental Protection Agency estimated that in 2007 an alarming 82% (1.84 million tons) of electronic waste ended up in landfills.[1]  If you are like us, this amount of waste is difficult to understand so let’s suppose that many of us students have five electronics devices (mobile phone, MP3 player, laptop, tablet and GPS navigator).  We will use, depend and care deeply for these electronic devices until we fall in love with the next best thing.  As human nature will have it, the inevitable will happen and 4 out 5 of our ex-devices will end up in landfills.   So the question all of us should be asking is not what the problem is, but how can we fix it.

Como puedes iniciar a “Make IT Green”?

Some simple, everyday ways YOU can be more Green IT conscious:

• Do you really need your cell phone, laptop, MP3 player, TV and tablet on at the same time?

• Do you really need to print ALL that?  In 2008, InfoTrends found that the average office employee used 130 pounds of paper![1]

• You forgot to turn off the light!

• Give your computer a rest, sleep mode is not real sleep.

• Be a Green consumer and look for products that have high energy ratings.  For example, EnergyStar 4.0 ratings[1]

Educate yourself on how to best recycle old electronic devices.  Contact EPA or IBM’s Asset Recovery Program or Apple’s Takeback Program before you send your iPod to the nearest landfill.  You will be surprised, some suppliers and manufactures may still use the same parts in new products.

Green IT and YOU!

Green IT has its benefits, but it also can be inconvenient.  We live in a society that thrives on instant gratification and time savings.  Conserving energy, waste and resources can get in the way.  However, are we willing to accept the alternative consequences resulting from NOT being green?  After reading this brief summary of the impact and benefits of Green IT, you may have already started to think about IE’s new printing policy.  Is it wise that we students were “inconvenienced” by not having all our course materials printed on paper?  We are the next generation business leaders, is this the message we want to deliver?

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[1]http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/testdrive/article.php/3855806/What-Is-Green-IT-and-Why-Should-You-Care.htm

http://lauriemccabe.com/about/

[2] http://www.infoworld.com/d/green-it/green-it-numbers-dont-lie-809?page=0,2).