Sustainable approaches to enterprise information and communication technology (ICT) present enormous opportunities for business leaders. First, sustainability in ICT is a moral necessity; but also, it can drive bottom-line improvements, customer satisfaction, and better employee morale, among other benefits.

 

The impetus for change is real—ICT alone generates 1.4% of total global carbon emissions, Forrester reports, and data centers consume close to 1% of the world’s electricity. But in a recent global survey of enterprise executives, only 18% of companies had a “comprehensive sustainable IT strategy with well-defined goals and target timelines,” according to Forbes in May 2021.

 

Despite these shortcomings, enterprise companies have real opportunities to drive value for themselves, their employees, and their customers; they can drive positive global change through ICT transformation as well. As our world becomes even more IT intensive, advancing both sustainable best practices and business initiatives have become two parts of the same effort.

 

How Sustainable ICT Became ‘Business Critical’

 

Industries like energy, transportation, and manufacturing get the bulk of the blame for humanity’s overall carbon footprint. But the impact of “digital pollution” alone is also alarming, where energy consumption for digital technologies is increasing by 9% each year, The Shift Project reports.

 

Indeed, ICT is connected to multiple industries and energy sources, touching just about every contributor to climate change in one way or another. But where some see a crisis, ambitious CIOs and other business leaders see an opportunity. For example, “consumers have exhibited a strong shift in preferences,” favoring companies that “use more recycled materials, move away from fossil fuels and reconsider their roles as stewards of the resources they use,” according to Forbes in February 2021. Similarly, modern employees are drawn to companies with sustainability policies in place, including around their ICT investments.

 

Business leaders may see dual altruistic and public relations benefits as well. ICT transformation can help “accelerate progress towards every single one of the 17 United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs),” the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reports. In these ways, sustainable transformation in enterprise ICT impacts all of us—even from companies not IT-focused by nature.

 

5 Steps Towards Realizing Your Sustainable ICT Goals

 

There is no reason IT-focused and non-IT focused companies alike can’t realize carbon neutrality and beyond. CIOs can take steps to align their operations with these initiatives as part of their company’s overall business strategy. Here are five steps CIOs and other technology leaders can take to move towards greater sustainability in ICT operations.

 

1. Begin with a Top-Down Strategic Approach

 

No matter their early attitudes on sustainable ICT transformation, employees look to CIOs and other business leaders to provide a vote of confidence before real changes can begin. Leaders must make clear that sustainable ICT aligns with an organization’s existing ethos and environment, social, and corporate governance (ESG) initiatives. In time, leaders must also define real, achievable metrics and methods employees can adopt to realize those goals.

 

To begin, leaders can show that the organization’s sustainability initiatives extend beyond the company alone, producing real impact on the environment; but also, driving credibility and business value among customers and partners. Leaders can then highlight the importance of each individual employees’ contribution to sustainable ICT initiatives, framing each of their roles in a way that demonstrates sustainable ICT is an attainable goal. Leaders must form their own vision for the organization’s “new normal” featuring sustainable ICT, and work to align managers and their teams with that holistic vision.

 

2. Identify Opportunities by Analyzing Your ICT Infrastructure

 

Next, business leaders must assess the environmental impact of their existing ICT infrastructure. They must leverage the help of internal experts or consultants to both calculate real metrics in terms of energy usage, carbon footprint, and the environmental impact of the supply chains they use for ICT resources.

 

It’s in identifying ICT functions where organizations have the greatest environmental impact that new opportunities emerge. Deeper insights into sustainability opportunities mean CIOs can design new operating models that integrate sustainability with digital transformation initiatives.

 

ICT partners and providers can help. In one case, a multi-cloud workload management provider helped companies reduce their carbon impact by 52% on average upon transitioning them from legacy on-premise solutions, Forbes reported in September 2021. It is one of many indicators that building a successful sustainable ICT strategy must involve very strong partnerships.

 

3. Develop a Strategy that Drives Real Sustainability and Business KPIs

 

Upon identifying opportunities for sustainable ICT transformation, business leaders can address both clear-cut and high-yielding initiatives to drive results quickly and substantially. CIOs can look for greener alternatives to existing partner cloud services, for example; they can adopt green data centers, abandon costly and underutilized applications or programs, and optimize teams’ use of digital resources.

Driving real value in terms of both sustainability and business means successfully measuring results from these initiatives on an ongoing basis as well. With the right tools, business leaders can demonstrate these results to partners, customers, new hires, and the broader public. Technology dashboards, purpose-built for business leaders and executives, enable key stakeholders to visualize and share how their sustainable ICT initiatives are driving real results.

 

4. Make a Case for ICT Transformation to Internal Stakeholders

 

With a comprehensive strategic approach that encourages employee participation, identifies opportunities for transformation, and aligns transformation with measurable sustainable and business initiatives, business leaders can make their case to other internal stakeholders to begin the ICT transformation process. Fortunately, “sustainability initiatives come with more than just goodwill,” as Forrester describes. “They result in tangible ‘green money’ for the future fit leaders willing to adapt and innovate their technology strategy.”

5. Implement Your Strategy and Position Investments for Ongoing Optimization

 

Upon investment and implementation, CIOs and other leaders can continue to promote a culture of sustainability within the organization and promote best practices that put sustainable use of information and communication technologies at the forefront. Leaders can arrange for frequent internal reviews of processes across departments, where partners and the broader world are always introducing opportunities, or yielding entirely new ones

 

Indeed, sustainable principles can apply across the ICT landscape—in terms of IT infrastructure, but also unexpected areas like customer service or application and web design. Since sustainability increasingly aligns with process optimization and cost savings, business leaders who embrace this approach early are more likely to imbue a culture of both environmental and process optimization for the lifetime or their organizations.

 

It’s Not Too Late to Turn Your ICT Around

 

ICT leaders are under tremendous pressure to keep operations running constantly, which imposes on their ability to enact real, sustainable change. But the impact of ICT on the environment will only become more difficult to ignore. The Internal Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that 95% of CO2 emission reductions will not be a result of changing behaviors on the part of individuals; it will b realized because of technology.

 

Fortunately, opportunities to adopt sustainable ICT are increasing in both availability and affordability; they often don’t require substantial disruptions to ongoing business operations as well. There has never been a better time to begin internal discussions about sustainable ICT and get your own initiatives off the ground as a result.

 

Partner with Uvation for your Sustainable ICT Transformation

 

Uvation works with enterprise companies to transform their information and communication technology infrastructure as part of long-term sustainability and business goals. Contact one of our sustainable CIT experts today to learn more about our capabilities.