Greening Information Technology (IT) Infrastructures

Abstract

Introduction There are several issues and opportunities with regard to information technology (IT). On the one hand, the IT industry is responsible for a large amount of global GHG emission, water pollution, depletion of scarce materials, growing volumes of e-waste and the largest release of hazardous waste worldwide. On the other hand, IT is an important source of cost efficiency and competitive advantage. Examples of economic opportunities of making IT greener are cost saving, risk reduction, innovation and prevention of resource restriction. Moreover, the social impact of the IT industry is immense. IT might be manufactured from minerals from military conflict zones or produced under derived working conditions. These examples of environmental, economic and social implications of IT illustrate that IT should constitute a significant part of an organisation’s sustainability policy and corporate responsibility (CR) strategy. But how can an IT decision-maker contribute to this? It is expected that a framework providing insights into the greenness of the hardware IT infrastructure of an organisation could support IT decision-makers contribute to the overall CR strategy of organisations. Consequently, the research question of this thesis project has been formulated as follows: What generic framework based upon environmental and economic life cycle assessment criteria could be developed to assess the relative greenness of the hardware IT infrastructure of an organization as a step towards a comprehensive corporate responsibility strategy? In essence this research addresses environmental and economic aspects of IT, often referred to as green IT. Emphasis is put on environmental sustainability and costs associated with the physical IT infrastructure supporting business applications through processing, transferring or storing computer programs or data. This is referred to as the greening the hardware IT infrastructure. The purpose of this research is to understand how an IT decision-maker can contribute to CR strategy by addressing several environmental issues efficiently. These environmental issues are related to water use, energy use and raw material use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and generation of electronic and electrical waste (WEEE). Research methodology To structure and guide the explorative research of designing a new framework, the design science research by Hevner et al. (2004) is applied. The design science research is an outcome based research methodology that focuses on designing artefacts. Basically this methodology consists of three types of iterations; relevance, rigor and design. To establish rigor and relevance literature was reviewed from the knowledge base (rigor) and design requirements were analysed from stakeholder interviews (relevance). This information constitutes the academic and practical grounding of the new artefact. To design a new framework three design iterations were carried out; two formative validations by expert panels and one operational validation through a case study. Results The outcome of the design process was a new framework that can be used to assess the greenness of an organisation’s hardware IT infrastructure. The framework consists of several viable performance indicators related to energy use, water use, GHG emission and generation of raw material waste at organisational level (see Chapter 7). The operationalization of these can be found in the functional design in Chapter 8. The functional design describes how the performance indicator scores can be estimated and aggregated into assessment criteria scores and an index. The assessment criteria were defined as follows: 1. Water use over the life cycle of hardware IT (m3) 2. Energy use over the life cycle of hardware IT (MJ) 3. Generation of waste over the life cycle of hardware IT (kg) 4. Greenhouse gas emissions over the life cycle of hardware IT (ton CO2) 5. Costs over the life cycle of hardware IT (euro) The index is entitled the Hardware IT infrastructure Greenness (HITIG) index. The HITIG index can be determined by applying the weighted sum method. This requires normalization and weighing of assessment criteria. At the moment normalization is not possible as an unbiased reference score cannot be established. Evaluation, reflection and recommendations Although three design iterations were carried out to design the new framework, the framework design process and the artefact have several limitations. First, the expert panel reviews have several limitations. The panels were small and expert opinions about which design requirement constituted “core requirements” differed between the panels. Second, the case study research had several limitations. Data used to estimate some of the performance indicators in the case study was deprived. Moreover, the external validity of the framework is limited as only one case study was executed with a limited number of hardware IT infrastructure units. Third, a limited number of aspects related to sustainability have been incorporated in the new framework. Environmental issues have been limited resource usage (water, energy and raw materials), GHG emission and waste generation and economic aspects have been limited to costs. Social implications of sustainability have not been included at all. Fourth, measuring performance is challenging and using indicators to assess the greenness of hardware IT is a reductionist tool that possibly cannot encapsulate the complexity of sustainability and greenness of IT. Lastly, several experts from KPMG have been involved in the definition of design requirements and the expert panel reviews. This could have biased the framework, but this cannot be completely proven. To deal with the shortcomings of the new framework several things could be done. The external validity of the framework could be enhanced by carrying out additional case studies in which different units of analysis are investigated. The functional design could be improved by incorporating more accurate and up-to-date data. The framework could be further expanded to incorporate additional economic and environmental aspects and social implications of IT. Land use, hazardous waste, quality and working conditions are examples of four aspects that could be incorporated in the framework. Furthermore, the framework could be accompanied with a management process to ensure an organisations’ progress is measured over time. The management process could be based upon the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. Implementing a new management process or integrating the framework in an already existing environmental management process could require awareness of green and sustainable IT within an organisation as well as a clear governance structure. Conclusion and further research The new framework can be used to determine the greenness of the hardware IT infrastructure of an organisation as a step towards a comprehensive CR strategy when incorporated in a measurement process. The framework supports achieving the desired green IT assessment criteria scores. Organisations can use the outcome of periodical measurements from the framework to, if required, adjust their policies in order to achieve the CR goals as part of their CR strategy. The framework can be used to assess green IT progression related to energy use, water use, generation of raw material waste, GHG emission and costs over the life cycle of hardware IT. Assessing the relative greenness of the hardware IT infrastructure of an organisation would require implementing the framework in a continuous management process. Measuring the hardware IT infrastructure greenness with the purpose of benchmarking results, it is recommended organisations apply the same calculation methodology to ensure consistency and comparability of results. For further research it is recommended to investigate how social aspects can be incorporated in the framework to ensure a more balanced contribution to CR strategy. It is also recommended to improve the quality of certain data used in the functional design and to extend the scope of environmental and economic sustainability aspects in the framework. Furthermore, research should focus on improving the framework through additional refinement cycles. Particularly important are additional case studies to test the general applicability of the framework, further refine the functional design and evaluate the use of the framework over time as part of a continuous management process.