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IT

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IT s Relationship to Sustainability: Also known as Green IT Jeffrey W. Merhout, Ph.D., CPA (Inactive) Associate Professor of MIS Farmer School of Business – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: IT


1
ITs Relationship to Sustainability Also known
as Green IT
  • Jeffrey W. Merhout, Ph.D., CPA (Inactive)
  • Associate Professor of MIS
  • Farmer School of Business
  • JMerhout_at_muohio.edu

2
Overview
  • ITs Contribution to Problems Associated with
    Sustainability
  • ITs Contribution to Solving Problems Associated
    with Sustainability
  • Define Green IT
  • Define Green IS
  • Please keep me in mind when you are planning
    Green/Sustainable IT/IS activities!

3
ITs Contribution to Problems Associated with
Sustainability
  • Criticism of IT
  • popular media accounts paint IS as a villain
    (Melville, MISQ, March, 2010, p. 14)
  • Waste from computers, televisions and other
    devices used in the United States is polluting
    the environment and exposing workers to toxic
    chemicals in regions of China and India where
    discarded electronics are dismantled, according
    to a study released Wednesday (Chea, 2005)
  • There's been a lot of hand-wringing lately about
    how much air traffic contributes to global
    warming. But another damaging culprit has
    recently been found the Internet. Computer
    centers consume massive amounts of energy, and
    their use is growing astronomically. (Dworschak,
    2008)

4
ITs Contribution to Problems Associated with
Sustainability
  • Life Cycle of IT
  • Purchase/procurement
  • Are suppliers using green raw materials?
  • Are suppliers using green supply chains?
  • Use
  • Energy use
  • Heat generation (requires energy to remove)
  • Disposal
  • Computer parts can be hazardous to the
    environment
  • Note this is focused only on the IT aspects of
    IS. The use of information systems (IS) will
    generally be associated with being positive
    (e.g., with green/sustainable systems)

5
ITs Contribution to Problems Associated with
Sustainability
  • Per Watson et al. (2010, p.32, emphasis added),
    large data centers can consume as much power as
    a factory, and computer-related power consumption
    is about 15 percent of total electricity usage in
    the United States (Lawton 2007). The five largest
    search companies, with about 2 million servers,
    devour 2.4 gigawatts, more energy than the
    maximum capacity of the Hoover Dams 2 gigawatts
    (Lawton 2007). IT investments are growing, and
    sustainability requires a reduction in
    computer-related energy consumption.

6
ITs Contribution to Solving Problems Associated
with Sustainability
  • Watson et al. (2009, p.2) describe Green IT as
    being mainly focused on energy efficiency and
    equipment utilization. It addresses issues such
    as
  • Replacing personal computers with energy
    efficient thin clients
  • Use of virtualization software to run multiple
    operating systems on one server
  • Reducing the energy consumption of data
    centers
  • Using renewable energy sources to power data
    centers
  • Reducing electronic waste from obsolete
    computing equipment
  • Promoting telecommuting and remote computer
    administration to reduce transportation
    emissions.

7
ITs Contribution to Solving Problems Associated
with Sustainability
  • On the other hand, Watson et al. (2009, pp. 2-3,
    bold emphasis added) discuss Green IS Green
    IS, in contrast, refers to the design and
    implementation of information systems that
    contribute to sustainable business processes.
  • Green IS, for example, helps an organization to
  • Reduce transportation costs with a fleet
    management system and dynamic routing of vehicles
    to avoid traffic congestion and minimize energy
    consumption
  • Support team work and meetings when employees
    are distributed throughout the world, and thus
    reduce the impact of air travel. IS can move
    remote working beyond telecommuting to include
    systems that support collaboration, group
    document management, cooperative knowledge
    management, and so forth.
  • Track environmental information (such as
    toxicity, energy used, water used, etc.) about
    the creation of products, their components, and
    the fulfillment of services

8
ITs Contribution to Solving Problems Associated
with Sustainability
  • Per Watson et al. (2010, p.32, emphasis added),
    IS designers play a large role in creating the
    way todays organizations operate, and their task
    needs to be reframed to include a focus on
    designing environmentally sustainable
    organizational practices that monitor, and
    ideally reduce, the extent of harmful emissions
    and used resources.
  • Per Watson et al. (2010, p.24, emphasis added),
    The argument for our involvement in promoting
    environmental sustainability is compelling.
    Information systems have been the greatest force
    for productivity improvement in the last half
    century.

9
ITs Contribution to Solving Problems Associated
with Sustainability
  • What are organizations doing to reduce the
    problems associated with the normal use of
    computing resources?
  • Virtualization
  • Cloud Computing
  • Purchase Energy Star products
  • Purchase EPEAT-certified computers and monitors
  • Minimize growth in electrical energy use
  • Turn off computing equipment not being used
    (e.g., overnight)
  • Energy-efficient programming algorithms,
    power-efficient software
  • Green(er) data centers
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