Green IT in Practice: How one company is approaching the greening of its IT

Chapter 1. What is Green IT?

‘Green computing’, like anything with a ‘green’ tag, can be hard to define. The label means different things to different people, and an IT department getting to grips with the subject can find it useful to start by trying to determine exactly what it understands by the term.

I’ve used the following definition to describe a green programme of IT work:

 

Green IT is a collection of strategic and tactical initiatives which either:

• directly reduce the ‘carbon footprint’ of the organisation’s computing operation;

• use the services of IT to help reduce the organisation’s overall carbon footprint;

• incentivise and support greener behaviour by the organisation’s employees, customers and suppliers;

• ensure the sustainability of the ...