| | October 20218IN MY OPINIONBy Nidhi Grover, Senior Director - Consulting, Capgemini InventDIGITAL TO GREEN, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IS AT THE FOREFRONT OF SUSTAINABLE TECH REVOLUTIONhe COVID pandemic has forced organizations to consider the larger and wider impact they have on the environment. Increasing focus on environment, social and governance (ESG) metrics is driving greater awareness of the carbon footprint of each organization. One function that has historically escaped close scrutiny and evaluation on its carbon footprint is Information Technology (IT).Enterprise IT­ across data centers, networks, user devices, applications ­is responsible for dramatically significant carbon emissions. For instance, in terms of comparison it is estimated the carbon footprint of a major cloud computing solution provider is equivalent to having 64,000 cars on the road for a year. With growing adoption of big data and AI, data centers themselves represented one percent of the world's energy demand in 2019, majority of which are still powered with fossil fuels, denoting the rising environmental footprint of enterprise IT.In addition, over 50 million tons of e-waste are generated each year, and this figure is rising. Only 15-20 percent of this waste is currently being recycled. Against this backdrop, there is a strong case for designing innovative technology solutions to reduce the environmental footprint of an organization (IT for Sustainability), in addition to reducing the environmental impact of IT itself (Sustainable IT).Leveraging IT Sustainability To Drive Energy Efficiency The potential for ESG initiatives across the end-to-end value chain for large organizations is significant. Emerging digital technologies such as IoT, AI/ML, blockchain, etc., enable real-time data-driven automated decision-making capabilities, which in turn drive energy efficiency, water consumption optimization, waste management and reduced green house gas (GHG) emissions. Google is a pioneer in tech-based sustainability solutions. It has launched interactive air pollution maps that measure and combine real-time air pollution information with Google Maps. Google's Project Sunroof promotes renewable energy consumption by determining economic viability of installing solar panels at a specific address using Google geo-data. For CXOs, the short-term concerns are the investments involved and data security controls. In the long run, operational efficiency and financial savings outweigh investments. Additionally, sustainability measures help in establishing employee and customer attractiveness leading to a favorable brand image. It is becoming a norm (a legal mandate in some countries) to monitor and publish extensive metrics on sustainability and carbon footprint of organizations in regulatory documents and financial reports. Reducing The Environmental FootprintEnterprise IT contributes greatly to energy consumption, carbon emissions and electronic waste creation. Across Enterprise IT, there are multiple levers that can be employed to reduce impact on the environment.With data at the core of every business, energy consumption of data center operations and subsequent energy requirements for cooling have increased significantly. Google, for instance, has leveraged AI/ML technology to reduce 40 percent energy consumption on cooling mechanism and 15 percent reduction T
< Page 7 | Page 9 >