Green IT – College Essay Example

and Nokia have made it a socially responsible priority to embrace the concept of ‘making IT eco-friendly’ and have adopted a variety of conservational practices linked to three key areas of green IT that are crucial in helping protect our fragile and easily unbalanced ecosystem.

These three key areas of green IT are: using computing esources more efficiently and effectively, electronic waste disposal and the optimization of technology to assist in solving sustainability requirements, aid and influence other ecological initiatives and create greater environmental awareness (Harmon & Auseklis, 2009). The efficient use of energy is vitally important for the environment as the total electrical energy consumption of data centres, servers and computers worldwide is progressively rising, resulting in even greater greenhouse gas emissions as the majority of the electricity is generated by burning coal, oil, or gas (Murugesan, 2010).

Annually, a regular desktop computer uses 868 kW of electricity and with virtually every company in the developed world having some kind of computer and with scores of companies having thousands of them, the overall amount of carbon emissions emanating into the earth’s atmosphere is astounding (Green IT, 2012).

Green (2008) asserts that as consumers increasingly desire more energy-efficient products and want to avoid companies associated with environmentally damaging practices or products, the opportunity presents itself for companies to be more proactive about their ecological stance. One well known corporation making the necessary strides to reduce their business’ impact on global warming is Hewlett Packard (HP), the biggest technology company in the world.

HP has been pushing hard to make their operations, data centres, and products more energy-efficient and is consistently highly

regarded as an eco-friendly technology company having topped Greenpeace’s 2012 Guide to Greener Electronics (Please refer to Appendix 1) which comprehensively ranks 15 of the top electronic manufacturers on their practices and policies on reducing their product’s effects on the earth’s atmosphere, producing more sustainable products and making their processes more environmentally sound.

The company has improved since last year by three places on the list having scored strongly on sustainable operations and energy criteria. The company also placed 5th on Interbrand’s 2012 Best Global Green Brands list, 22nd on NewsWeek’s 2012 environmental ranking of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the world and 3rd amongst companies in the technology equipment industry (Please refer to Appendix 2 and 3) thus clearly signifying its solid environmental standpoint.

Preston (2001) cited early on of HP’s recognition of the need to combine environmental sustainable practices into its core business strategy and its commitment to becoming an ecological leader in the 21st century. The company’s leading sustainable efforts are illustrated through its installation of an EcoPOD next-generation data centre in Georgia, USA earlier this year which is ‘currently the most efficient data centre in existence and can decrease energy consumption by 95% in contrast to traditional services’ (Interbrand, 2012).

Furthermore, according to the Hewlett Packard company website, the enterprise has also delivered on its environmental goals which included reducing the energy use of HP products and associated greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2005 levels by the end of 2011- the company reduced it to 50% and accomplished it nine months ahead of its plan.

Through the assortment of product design strategies in its

range of high-volume desktop and laptop categories, the company also exceeded its aim to save customers one billion kWh of electricity, relative to 2008- HP surpassed this target and helped customers conserve 1. billion kWh through 2010 (HP, 2012). It also exceeded its objective to better the overall energy efficiency of its HP ink and laser printing products by 40%, comparative to 2005 by improving it to 46% (HP, 2012). It can be seen that HP has successfully and positively used its scale, product portfolio and resourcefulness to reduce its environmental influence, allowing its customers to be more aware of their energy consumption and exemplifying the significant association between IT and the environment.

Sustainable discarding of electronic waste is another critical focus due to the increased pollution of the earth and contamination of water caused by the large amount of old computers and other electronic hardware which contain toxic substances, being disposed and winding up in landfills (Murugesan, 2010). Wirth (2010) points out that in 2006-07, 43 million tonnes of electronic waste finished up in landfill in Australia - an increase of 31% from 2001 and only 10% of the 16. million televisions and computers Australians purchased in 2007-08 were recycled.

With Australia’s relatively small population of 20 million people, one can only imagine the electronic waste issues in more populated countries. Furthermore, as electronics contain minerals such as gold and copper which only 30% and 10% respectively are recovered once disposed, the promotion of improved means of electronic waste disposal such as recycling and reusing becomes even more important due to the finite nature of the earth’s resources (Green IT, 2012).