ICT & Environment – Supply & Demand Considerations

OECD Working Party on the Information Economy released “Measuring the Relationship Between ICT and the Environment” (2009).  The report contains a useful framework for asking important questions from supply (producer) and demand (in use) perspectives concerning positive and negative environmental impacts (click on diagram to see larger version).

Leverage Part II

Reducing energy used by home computers and TVs by 50% would save much less energy (and GHG) than using IT to lower energy used by washing machines, dryers, and other household energy hogs (e.g., by demand response) by 20%. Suggestion: do both. 

Leverage Part I

Times article implies digital age is feeding a hunger for energy:

But CO2 emissions due to computers and related is just a few percentage points (2.8% in 2020 BAU scenario) of all energy use (though it is growing three times faster than emissions from other sources):

And IT’s potential indirect impact on lowering CO2 emissions in other [...]

Yet Another “Smart Grid Promotes Conservation” Story

The Times Green Inc. blog reports today on a study of energy use in 100 business and residential sites after a demand-response system was initiated:
A smart grid pilot project in Fayetteville, N.C., has resulted in an initial 20 percent decline in average electricity consumption, according Consert, a Raleigh, N.C. technology company.
Those numbers are based on [...]

Role of Information on Environmental Practices

A new study by Sanjay Sharma in the journal Business Strategy and the Environment finds that information availability mediates the the association between organization design variables and environmental practices. More proof of the importance of information technologies in informing beliefs, changing actions, and improving the natural environment (my emphasis added):
This study examines whether providing employees [...]

Green and White Collar Jobs

David Levy at Climate Inc. has a post about “green and white collar jobs” in which he discusses firms and products in the IT sector that are poised to drive green job opportunities – another important dimension of IS for environmental sustainability in which innovation is critical (my emphasis in bold):
Some of the sectors, such as [...]

Impact of Computers on the Environment

Most of my blog is about how information systems can enhance and transform environmental sustainability throughout the enterprise. It’s about using the Internet, PCs,  iPhone apps., carbon tracking software, information visualization, etc., to green organizations and improve the natural environment. 
Computers themselves, however, have an impact on the environment in terms of energy use, disposal, etc. A volume [...]

SAP Acquires Sustainability Software Company

According to the Financial Times (subs. req.), SAP is moving into the sustainability software space:

Regardless of compliance, organisations should be moving to a more sophisticated definition of what green IT entails, one that acknowledges the role IT can play in curbing emissions across the business, says Peter Graf, chief sustainability officer of enterprise software giant [...]

Sustainability as Driver of Innovation

My forthcoming article in MIS Quarterly explains how innovative application of information systems is critical to 

changing beliefs and attitudes about the environment, e.g., via eco-visualization;
enabling new business processes and activities that support environmental sustainability, e.g., energy demand response; 
measuring the impact of organizational eco-actions on economic and environmental performance, e.g., carbon tracking software.

An article in HBS this [...]