Environmentally Friendly and Renewable – Everything You Need To Know About Green IT

Most of you have probably heard of IT, but what about Green IT? That’s the term that hasn’t been present for too long. Namely, green IT (green information technology) represents environmentally sustainable computing.

Just like every other environmentally-friendly practice, its main goal is to decrease the negative impact of IT operations on our planet by developing, designing, operating, and eliminating computers and any other computer-related things in an eco-friendly manner.

Its motive is to minimize the use of dangerous materials, and at the same time, maximize energy efficiency during the product’s life and encourage the biodegradability of unused products. These are the basics of green IT and below, we will dive deeper to help you understand it even better.

Essential Facts That Everyone Should Know About Green IT

What Does It Encompass?

The scope of green IT is actually pretty vast. Let’s start with Green IT 1.0. This one covers everything related to IT, the processes, software, hardware, hosting, various methods, and many other things.

Speaking of these sectors, luckily, these days, you can come across different IT companies that are doing green IT web hosting. That’s particularly the case in the United Kingdom. So if you’re looking for environmentally-friendly, yet high-quality and cost-effective hosting solutions in this country, then just type in Green UK web hosting to hunt down the most reliable company. Now, let’s move on with the topic.

Namely, green IT 1.0 protects the planet through eco-design (RDD, or Responsible Digital Design), waste management, energy savings, and all of this lead to a decrease in the IT Systems Department budget. 

Besides green IT 1.0, there’s also green IT 1.5. What does this one cover? It covers all the telecommunications and network services. Additionally, all of them are obligated to design a SIDD, which stands for Sustainable Development Information System.

Furthermore, this mode decreases the footprint of communication infrastructures, such as telephony, networks, etc., and, simultaneously, utilizes it to support an internal environmental policy.

What is part of the internal environmental policy? Things like reducing travel through remote working, developing first-class digital tools, reporting, supervising, evaluating the environmental performance of employees, and many other things. 

And last, but not least, is green IT 2.0 which tries to make the use of ICTs one step further and not just enhance the carbon footprint of their own sector. The main goal is to employ ICTs outside the firm.

Moreover, it strives to think beyond plain optimization through the IT sector. Its biggest purpose is to make disruptive eco-inventions, for instance, modifications in the economic and behavioral model by utilizing ICT.

The Societal & Social Dimensions Of Green IT

Everything regarding green IT 1.0 and green IT 1.5 must be perceived with particular objectivity. Namely, its biggest priority is only to optimize the ecological footprint of digital technology itself.

Even though it sounds great, bear in mind, that the development of a myriad of green software and equipment can sadly lead to overconsumption, which can, at some point, cause even more hazardous effects on our environment.

This is the so-called rebound effect, which means that the energy savings that we were all anticipating due to the latest green technology could potentially be offset by the emergence of the newest consumption patterns and behaviors on a society-wide scale. 

And that can be one of the biggest risks in this situation. Generally speaking, this entire approach should be taken further by using the green IT 2.0. The main goal should be to properly change the way people function these days, in order to distribute global Greenhouse Gas (or short for GHG) emissions by four in the next twenty-eight years. 

Anything Else That Should Be Mentioned As Well?

The Fair IT

What is it? Well, this can be defined as the ultimate concept and something that should definitely be mentioned here. It perfectly complements all those methods that were previously mentioned, by focusing on the working conditions of people who are part of the digital sector. 

Even though Fair IT is mostly focused on software and hardware suppliers, it doesn’t neglect the users, since they are one of the most important stakeholders in this whole process, due to the fact that they can have an effect on these suppliers by reminding them that they should be making some serious ethical commitments. 

If there was one thing that we were able to conclude from all of this, is that green IT is extremely beneficial for our planet, and fortunately, over the past couple of years, it has become a sustainable trend for numerous organizations and companies in the software development industry.