Sustainable IT services: Assessing the impact of green computing practices

Abstract

Green computing refers to the practice of using computing resources more efficiently while maintaining or increasing overall performance. Sustainable IT services require the integration of green computing practices such as power management, virtualization, improving cooling technology, recycling, electronic waste disposal, and optimization of the IT infrastructure to meet sustainability requirements. Recent studies have shown that costs of power utilized by IT departments can approach 50% of the overall energy costs for an organization. While there is an expectation that green IT should lower costs and the firm's impact on the environment, there has been far less attention directed at understanding the strategic benefits of sustainable IT services in terms of the creation of customer value, business value and societal value. This paper provides a review of the literature on sustainable IT, key areas of focus, and identifies a core set of principles to guide sustainable IT service design.