CIOs can gain buy-in for big projects by starting with small efforts that deliver immediate results.
The discussion of "green IT" often focuses on glamorous technologies such as virtualization, data center power management, and optimized data center cooling. And these are indeed the Big Three methods for carbon-footprint reduction in terms of the environmental benefits they deliver. But they may not be the best ways to launch your green IT strategy, because they require significant investment as well as executive buy-in. However, if you rank all your possible green projects in terms of their payoff versus implementation effort (both time and cost), you'll likely discover a lot of "low-hanging fruit." These are smaller initiatives that are quick to implement, require very little investment (in some cases, no capital expenditures [CapEx] at all), and yet deliver an immediate and quantifiable financial return in addition to environmental benefits. A canny CIO can use these successes to gain the momentum needed to launch major initiatives that deliver huge benefits in terms of cost savings, carbon-footprint reduction, and a career trajectory boost.
The Dilemma of Sustainability
Information technology can reduce a company's environmental impact both by improving its own carbon footprint, through technologies such as virtualization, and by using technologies such as teleconferencing to reduce the impact of other activities such as travel. But in the latter case, CIOs can find themselves confronted by very complex choices: how do you balance the green benefits of new IT initiatives versus their own additional environmental impact? Overall, information and communication industries are already responsible for 2 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. How do you avoid adding to the problem?
"This is the dilemma of sustainability," says Richard Rundle, CIO of the British Airport Authority (BAA), which owns and operates seven airports in the United Kingdom, including London Heathrow, the world's busiest international airport. "Every bit of IT investment adds technology with some degree of environmental impact: more power, more cooling, and so forth." He notes that in the new Terminal 5 at London Heathrow, IT alone is the third largest consumer of energy and the top consumer of cooling.
Large enterprises can afford to develop complex models to achieve balance in their green strategy. Indeed, in the case of some companies, such as BAA, this is necessary to satisfy governmental bodies whose regulatory power is a major factor in their ability to grow. But what can the CIO of a smaller company do? In part, the answer seems to be to concentrate on the reduction of operational costs when considering a green IT initiative, and, indeed, IDC identifies this as the number-one driver for such projects. Some of these are easily quantified, such as power consumption. Unfortunately others, such as increased IT productivity, are notoriously "soft" benefits. But, overall, a project with green benefits will almost certainly deliver a reduction in operating expenses (OpEx) as well.
And, if that's not enough motivation, consider the results of The Power of Green, a study published by Brockmann & Company, which introduces the concept of the "Green Quotient." This is described as "a proxy for a sustainable business culture most commonly associated with marketplace winners." Based on research conducted early this year, the study concludes that being green has definite business benefits: "higher customer satisfaction, higher employee satisfaction, higher revenue per employee and higher market share." As well, there's a boost in brand perception among buyers when a company is perceived as green.
The CIO Perspective
Due to the growing momentum of the environmental movement, the motivation behind green IT projects is often "top-down," the result of executive decisions driven by more than just the possible cost savings. Many smaller companies, for instance, are pressured by larger business partners who demand sustainability from their suppliers. Cathy Hill is counsel in the CleanTech Practice Group at the law firm Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP, where she advises clients on a range of sustainability issues. "Most investment banks and large retail banks have developed a sustainability plan," she says. "And as a part of that plan they generally require that their vendors become sustainable as well."
But she also works with clients, generally smaller, more entrepreneurial companies, where the impetus to going green actually comes from the CIO. "The cost savings and reduction in energy usage can show up in the bottom line very quickly," she notes, "so they see it as an opportunity for them to make a positive impact on the business in a quantifiable way they can take credit for. This is very important to the IT organization, which still tends to be viewed as a cost center."
In either case, the CIO needs a way to rank and prioritize green projects. Where do you start? Ken Oestreich, director of product marketing at Cassatt, a maker of power management software, says that the simplest approach is a two-dimensional matrix. "You look at what's the bang for the buck' versus the complexity of implementation." Of course, how you define "bang" can get pretty complicated. Even in terms of cost savings alone, you may have both capital and operational savings, and as noted earlier, quantifying operational savings can be difficult once you get beyond the obvious things like reduced electrical consumption.
Adding It All Up
A good example of the complex interplay of factors that go into calculating the benefits of sustainability can be garnered from the Cisco Connected Workplace project, which was the subject of an article in last month's forum. The project improved environmental sustainability by reducing the number of electronic devices and building space required for each employee.
When reducing the number of devices, the most obvious and quantifiable benefit is the reduction of power consumption. The Connected Workplace project yielded 50 percent fewer Ethernet ports, fewer shared devices such as printers and copiers, a higher density of WLAN access points, and the elimination of "personal" appliances like refrigerators, stereos, and microwave ovens due to the virtual absence of assigned workspaces. By comparing the power consumption in the new workspace with that of a similar, traditional environment (based on the published power rating for the devices involved), it was possible to estimate the improvement in energy efficiency. See Table 1.
Table 1: Energy Efficiency Gains with Cisco Connected Workplace
But there were other benefits, as well, that are harder to quantify but nonetheless real. With 22 percent fewer electronic devices per employee, and 54 percent less cabling, the Connected Workspace generates less e-waste. Less cabling also means less toxic PVC cable cladding, and less demand for virgin copper. In addition, an analysis by WSP Environmental Strategies has demonstrated that the decrease in office space required per employee delivered by the Connected Workspace, if applied to a 100,000-square-foot office space, could save 1500 tons of concrete, 280 tons of steel, and 2850 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which is the equivalent of taking 560 passenger cars off the road for a year. (For more details on the sustainability benefits of the Connected Workspace, go to http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ciscoitatwork/business_of_it/cisco_green_office.html.)
Finding a Place to Start
But you don't need complicated models and complex calculations to start your company's green initiatives. As Hill notes, "some of what you can do is ridiculously simple." For instance, merely enforcing the proper power management settings on desktop computers as part of systems management can save a lot of energy, as can insisting on more efficient power supplies in desktop computers when your current ones reach end of life. Or, at the cost of a more complex implementation, various desktop power management schemes can make an even larger difference.
Another often-overlooked way to make your company greener involves various consumables. Printers are a notable example. Hill notes that one of the sustainability requirements some big banks impose on their vendors is to require that all documents be printed double-sided. "Merely setting the print default on all your computers to double-sided saves 30 percent in paper and ink right off," she says. It also cuts down on the amount of waste created.
Another way to reduce reliance on paper might be dual-monitor setups, because many people print out a document just to be able to refer to it while working on another. This is likely to work better with younger employees; in general, older employees tend to be less comfortable with the idea of "going virtual" when it comes to documents. By contrast, Hill says, "kids just out of law school, for instance, often print a document just to be polite."
As these examples indicate, the trick is to start small. Don't be distracted by the glamour of big technologies like virtualization to the point where you overlook opportunities to score big with little or no investment. For instance, take a look at your company's paper budget versus how much it would cost to reset the printing default on your computers. How many other quick opportunities like this are overlooked by habit? As Hill points out, "When you start with a series of successes, and make sure people are aware of why you did them, you create a groundswell of acceptance for bigger changes down the road. You get management buy-in and, more important, peer-to-peer buy-in, which is critical for the cultural changes your company will need to be really green."
