Green IT and Sustainability: Challenges and Opportunities in Business

This essay delves into the concept of Green IT and environmental sustainability, examining how businesses and organizations can reduce their environmental impact through green computing practices. It defines Green IT, highlighting its focus on designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computer hardware and associated systems in an environmentally responsible manner. The discussion covers the benefits of Green IT, such as reducing carbon emissions and promoting sustainable development, while also addressing challenges faced by IT professionals in adopting green technologies. The essay explores the impact of Green IT on society and the economy, including the role of the Green New Deal in transitioning IT systems. It concludes by emphasizing the growing importance of environmental awareness in the IT industry and the initiatives aimed at improving sustainability within corporate sectors. The essay references peer-reviewed journals to support its arguments.

Running head: GREEN IT AND SUSTAINABILITY
Green IT and Sustainability
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1. Introduction
Environmental responsibility is defined as an emerging topic within various corporate
organizations and the suppliers of technology. This essay is focused over the topic of Green IT or
Green Computing. The concept of Green IT is primarily focused over the study of designing
manufacturing systems, using them and disposing of servers, computer hardware systems and
other kind of associated systems (Chin, Tat and Sulaiman 2015). These include printers,
computer monitors and various kind of networked devices. Other dimensions that are covered
within the concept of Green IT includes sustainability of environment, total ownership cost and
the cost of recycling of used goods.
2. Discussion
The impact of Green IT technologies primarily encompass different aspects in relation to
the planning for reducing the impact of humans over the environment. They also help in the
creation of several innovative ways based on sustainable development. The key parameters for
the evolvement of Green IT technologies are economic feasibility, social equitability and
sustainability. There are a wide range of benefits that could be with the help of green
technologies (D'Amato et al. 2017). One of the primary goal of the major economies of the
world are based on reducing the emissions of carbon and controlling the huge rise in temperature
of climate. These could be address with the impact of green technologies.
The use of Green IT solutions and technical concepts also empowers people. Hence, there
are many companies who are in the process of investing heavily in the building aspects of such
kind of technological (Jennings, Larson and Yun 2016). However, there are no kind of people or
groups who are negatively impacted with the technology. The process of Green IT requires the

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major form of involvement of people for diffusing the technology in remote areas. In the recent
times, it has majorly been seen that IT systems have been the primary cause of large number of
emissions that needs to be managed efficiently. They also form an important aspect of the
compliance followed within the organisation. Thus, the aim of Green IT technologies and
systems is to mainly focus over the reduction of the carbon footprint for the entire organisation
(Zuo and Zhao 2014). The other objectives based on using the technology is to facilitate the
reporting over carbon emissions and the trading system of emissions.
The impact of Green IT systems that would be implemented by most of the companies of
the world would majorly bring about changes within the society and economy. It forms a subset
of large kind of green business trend (Dangelico, Pujari and Pontrandolfo 2017). They reconcile
the practices for maintaining sustainable business environment with the help of maintaining
profitable operations for the business. Due to rising number of greenhouse gas emissions that are
mostly been affected from the use of IT systems and products, the buyers and suppliers would be
realizing about the incorporation of green principles. Hence, they should incorporate the use of
green principles within the designing, manufacturing, implementing of operations and disposing
of IT assets that pose a harm to the environment.
The Green New Deal defines a certain proposal based on outlining of a broad set of
principles based on planning against the inequity and thus tackling the effects of climate change.
The society would be highly impacted with the huge growth of such Green IT technologies and
systems. The new deal based on Green IT would recognize the transitioning of IT systems within
the organizations (Norton, Zacher and Ashkanasy 2014). The old kind of IT systems that were
the primary cause of vulnerability towards the environment would be further innovated and thus

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a new kind of planning process would be developed. They would aim towards improving the
internal systems such as to mitigate the concerns that are currently being faced.
The impact of Green IT systems within the corporate sector would also incur certain kind
of challenges based on the part of IT professionals. These include:
1. Identification of appropriate technology that would be suitable for generation of green
sustainable culture within the corporate sector.
2. Determining national policies based on providing recommendation towards the
adoption of Green IT systems (Patel, Mehrotra and Soner 2015).
3. IT vendors would also face a major form of challenge based on determining the type of
processors, cooling system, data centre and power required for the running of systems.
4. The manufacturing of an eco-friendly system based on considering the limitations set
within the infrastructure of IT equipment is also considered as a major kind of challenge.
3. Conclusion
The above discussion focuses over the rising topic of discussion focused over Green IT
systems and technologies based on maintaining environmental sustainability. Awareness of the
environment is a major kind of concern that is rising within the IT companies and other corporate
sectors. Hence, the discussion from the report concludes over the fact that the IT industry is
focusing over the developmental aspects of infrastructure within the corporate sectors. The
initiatives based on green manufacturing focuses over reducing paper usage, recycling of
equipment and many others. Thus, with the improvements in such kind of aspects it would help
in improving the sustainability factor for the corporate sectors and impact global scenario.

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References
Chin, T.A., Tat, H.H. and Sulaiman, Z., 2015. Green supply chain management, environmental
collaboration and sustainability performance. Procedia Cirp, 26, pp.695-699.
D'Amato, D., Droste, N., Allen, B., Kettunen, M., Lähtinen, K., Korhonen, J., Leskinen, P.,
Matthies, B.D. and Toppinen, A., 2017. Green, circular, bio economy: A comparative analysis of
sustainability avenues. Journal of Cleaner Production, 168, pp.716-734.
Dangelico, R.M., Pujari, D. and Pontrandolfo, P., 2017. Green product innovation in
manufacturing firms: A sustainability‐oriented dynamic capability perspective. Business Strategy
and the Environment, 26(4), pp.490-506.
Jennings, V., Larson, L. and Yun, J., 2016. Advancing sustainability through urban green space:
Cultural ecosystem services, equity, and social determinants of health. International Journal of
environmental research and public health, 13(2), p.196.
Norton, T.A., Zacher, H. and Ashkanasy, N.M., 2014. Organisational sustainability policies and
employee green behaviour: The mediating role of work climate perceptions. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 38, pp.49-54.
Patel, Y.S., Mehrotra, N. and Soner, S., 2015, February. Green cloud computing: A review on
Green IT areas for cloud computing environment. In 2015 International Conference on
Futuristic Trends on Computational Analysis and Knowledge Management (ABLAZE) (pp. 327-
332). IEEE.
Zuo, J. and Zhao, Z.Y., 2014. Green building research–current status and future agenda: A
review. Renewable and sustainable energy reviews, 30, pp.271-281.