With the year coming to an end, and the UN Climate Change Conference taking place this month, the green agenda is inevitably coming to the fore. Companies will be revising their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies in preparation for the new decade.
Today, more and more organisations are showing their commitments towards CSR. Corporate green initiatives are no longer exclusive to large companies with a ton of resources. Small and medium-sized businesses are also now adopting strategies that help the environment along with boosting the company’s bottom line.
Changing market scenarios, globalisation, and ethical consumerism are part of the driving forces adding heat to corporate social responsibility (CSR).
CSR has been defined in many different ways, although some parts of it stay common. CSR is the responsibility among firms to meet the needs of their stakeholders. According to The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum, CSR is designed to deliver sustainable value to society at large, as well as to shareholders. Companies are under increasing pressure from stakeholders to adopt systematic approaches to manage the increasing scarce of natural resources and are therefore seeking more innovative methods of promoting eco-friendly environments by integrating Green IT strategies in their business functions. Environmental technology and information technology are two particularly important areas when it comes to developing a sustainable society.
What is Green IT?
Green IT is the use of computers and telecommunications in a way which maximises positive environmental benefits and minimise the negative impact. Green IT is focused on reducing the environmental impact through improving end-user working practises, creating energy-efficient office environments and reducing data centre energy consumption. This strategy takes into account energy efficiency and environmental impact.
Green IT has become more important because organisations are using it as a vehicle to save money, by doing more with less, enabling them to meet various business challenges. It enables organisations to take advantage of energy savings and reduce the energy consumption of Information technologies.
Implementing Green IT strategies is not a project, it is a process that requires ongoing evaluation. Incorporating Green IT strategies such as hardware consolidation in your company is one way to achieve sustainability even though that is not the only way.
3 Strategies for Green IT
Storefront This strategy doesn’t require the company to change its business activities. Storefront reviews the existing activities to see if they can be presented as Green IT. It includes the presentation of Green IT projects on the website and through external communications.
Tuning When tuning, the company investigates existing activities to see if it can improve efficiency and resource consumption by using Green IT. Strategies such as hardware consolidation and visualisation reduce the amount of physical hardware needed and the company’s overall energy consumption.
Redesign This is a long term strategy, it alters the company’s internal structure and business processes to fully leverage Green IT. Redesigning processes includes identifying new business opportunities enabled by Green IT and changing the corporate culture to suit the new design. For instance, Google. Google has constructed the world’s most energy-efficient data centres and continuously campaigns for the need for energy conservation.
Green IT strategies delve beyond the corporate responsibilities of companies in a market-driven economy to demonstrate the importance of carbon management as an integral part of good business management. Increasing profits, reducing costs, adhering to standards, and process management are all masterfully intertwined with Green IT issues.