Who Is More Sustainability Conscious in the IT Sector? |
Posted By Zen Kishimoto,
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
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I have blogged on Newsweek’s 500 greenest companies in the U.S. before. Of the 500 companies chosen, about 10% are in the IT sector. Because about 10% of S&P 500 companies are in IT, it may be reasonable to have that many companies listed. I, however, expected more of IT companies. After all, these companies are familiar with their own and other IT technologies for making other parts of the enterprise greener. Only about half of these 50 companies had their sustainability report registered at Corporate Register. Some—mostly hardware companies—have a really detailed, comprehensive report, while others—mostly software companies—have a very sketchy report, or none at all.
I wondered why this is the case, so I talked to someone who is looking at this issue as his day job. His theory is that companies that manufacture hardware components or products are keen on sustainability because their customers are very sensitive to the effects of manufacturing on the environment. Naturally they need to pay attention to this issue because sustainability has become one of the checkout items for competition. Companies like Intel, HP, IBM, and EMC produce very comprehensive sustainability reports.
Software companies, on the other hand, do not produce physical products as their counterparts, the hardware companies, do, and they may find it hard to consider sustainability from an operational point of view. However, software companies may run their own data centers or colocate at other data centers. They occupy buildings that certainly consume power and water, emit GHG, and generate wastes, including e-waste.
Hardware companies are under pressure from the market to be sustainability conscious. As I see what is on the horizon, software companies need to be as sustainability conscious as hardware companies because regulatory pressure is around the corner. It may make sense to start preparing for it now rather than later.
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500 greenest companikes
IT
Newsweek
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Posted Tuesday, December 15, 2009