Abstract
The field green ICT focuses on the greening of ICT and using ICT to optimise the energy footprint of the ICT-supported processes. For organisations, applying green ICT in the broadest sense presents them with challenges. In this paper we explore what factors are influencing the adoption of green ICT. We follow three organisations that used a green ICT tool, the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model, to identify such factors. Tools like the maturity model help organisations identify the what and how. We found other factors, such as strategic alignment, culture and leadership, determine the why. As ICT is a general purpose technology, it potentially affects all processes in an organisation. To have a greening impact, the main challenge for green ICT is to take a systemic approach and involve all (relevant) parties. ICT departments often position themselves as support (followers, not leaders); this proves to be a big hurdle in the adoption of green ICT.
Highlights
Information and communication technologies are a growing part of the global footprint on the environment
From the two maturity scans and the interview with the project lead (PL), we found a number of interesting factors that influenced the adoption of green ICT
We see that the factors of influence we identified in the field study are more related to “why” an organisation would apply green ICT solutions: individual or strategic motivation, culture, organisational structure, who benefits and who does not, et cetera
Summary
Information and communication technologies are a growing part of the global footprint on the environment. ICT can be used as part of solutions to reduce the environmental footprint of other activities. Activities that reduce the footprint of ICT or use ICT to reduce the footprint of other processes, are part of the field green ICT. There are many publications that describe the potential of using ICT as part of the solution to reduce our environmental footprint. Organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund call for a shift of focus “from Green IT to Greening with IT” [1], and the reports by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative [2] claim that the potential of greening with ICT (possible global CO2-reduction of 16%) far outweighs the footprint of ICT itself ( 2%). How can we get green ICT to affect everything? How does this translate to the practical reality? In our work an organisation (any organisation) represents these challenges green ICT has
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