Not-So-Green IT?

Michael R. Wood is a Business Process Improvement & IT Strategist Independent Consultant. He is creator of the business process-improvement methodology called HELIX and founder of The Natural Intelligence Group, a strategy, process improvement and technology consulting company. He is also a CPA, has served as an Adjunct Professor in Pepperdine's Management MBA program, an Associate Professor at California Lutheran University, and on the boards of numerous professional organizations. Mr. Wood is a sought after presenter of HELIX workshops and seminars in both the U.S. and Europe.

  Strategy  

Google “Green IT” or “Green Computing” and you will find most of the links date back to 2011 or before. It seems that either green IT is well entrenched into the culture or that the interest in going green, at least in the IT world, has waned.

Since there is so little being written about green IT, it is difficult to know what the status of the industry has become. It appears that the only surveys being conducted are by green IT providers like Cisco, HP, IBM, Fujitsu, Hitachi and Rackspace. A few years back, a number of companies in France formed the Green IT Alliance; but since the website is in French, it is difficult to catch up on their efforts for many of us.

What is apparent is that green IT--with the exception of adding cloud computing to the list of things an organization can do to go green--has not seen a great deal of advancement. Most organizations promoting green fall more into the category promoting awareness and political lobbying. For the most part, green IT concerns itself with:

• Recycling & waste reduction
  • Recycling existing electronic devices
  • Recycling used paper
  • Reusing envelopes
  • Recycling print/toner cartridges
  • Purchasing recycled toner cartridges
  • Printing two-sided pages
• Conservation & energy efficiency
  • Shutting down …

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