UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

UNIT-1
GREEN COMPUTING
Green IT Fundamentals
Green computing (also known as green IT or sustainable IT) is the design,
manufacture, use and disposal of computers, chips, other technology components and
peripherals in a way that limits the harmful impact on the environment, including
reducing carbon emissions and the energy consumed by manufacturers, data
centers and end-users. Green computing also encompasses choosing sustainably
sourced raw materials, reducing electronic waste and promoting sustainability through
the use of renewable resources.
Green IT (also referred to as Green ICT or Green computing) has been defined as “the
study and practice of designing, manufacturing, using, and disposing of computers,
servers, and associated subsystems (such as monitors, printers, storage devices, and
networking and communications systems) efficiently and effectively with
minimal or no impact on the environment.”
Environmental Impacts of IT
 Environmental Impact of Computers: Computers have a significant
environmental impact, starting from the mining of raw materials for components,
energy consumption during usage, and ending with electronic waste disposal. The
scale of impact includes damage to local ecosystems from mining practices, increase
in CO2 emissions due to energy usage and release of harmful toxins from e-waste.
 Cloud Computing: While cloud computing is touted as an energy-efficient
practice, it has multifaceted environmental implications due to the extensive
infrastructure and massive power requirements of the data centres that support it. Data
centres consume a significant portion of energy leading to substantial CO2 emissions.
 Environmental Impact of Disposing Computers: Disposing old computers
contribute to the growing problem of Electronic Waste or E-Waste. E-waste can
release harmful toxins into the environment if not properly handled, leading to soil
and water pollution, and can pose significant risks to human health.
 Computer Manufacturing Environmental Impacts: The computer manufacturing
process consumes significant resources and emits greenhouse gases during production.
It involves extraction of raw materials, processing of these materials and assembly of
various components. Each stage has a significant environmental impact.
Practical Examples of Environmental Impact of Computing: Real-world
examples of computing's carbon footprint include the energy consumed by data
centres, carbon emissions from sending unnecessary emails and streaming services.
Additionally, the demand for upgraded devices encourages a throwaway culture,
contributing to the e-waste problem.

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

Importance of green IT
Green IT is important for several reasons, including the following three:
Climate change. Enterprise IT emits a lot of greenhouse gases and contributes to
climate change. Businesses must track and reduce their emissions as well as various
types of toxic electronic waste that pollute the environment. Green IT approaches can
be a useful part of broader climate strategies in companies.
Compliance. Businesses are increasingly under pressure from governments and the
public to reduce their environmental impact. Green IT makes more efficient use of
resources, reducing waste and emissions and improving recycling rates. This helps
businesses comply with government regulations.
Competitive advantage. Green IT can be a component of environmental, social and
governance initiatives in companies, and many now use ESG reporting to disclose
green IT practices. Positive ESG performance is attractive to customers, prospective
employees and investors. IT organizations often include ESG practices as purchasing
criteria when choosing information and communication technology.

Benefits of green IT
Green IT offers the following social, environmental and business benefits:
Reduced emissions. Decreasing carbon emissions helps improve the environment. To
limit global warming, worldwide emissions must be reduced by 7.6% every year to
2030, according to the United Nations.
Less waste. Reusing and refurbishing IT equipment is a more environmentally
friendly -- and potentially cheaper -- option for product acquisition. It's also part of the
circular economy, which eliminates waste and improves supply chain

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

resiliency. Circular economy models can also involve servitization, where companies
sell products as a service and manage the maintenance and end-of-life processes for
customers.
Extended maintenance periods. Reusable, green IT products allow for longer
maintenance cycles and less frequent device replacement.
Cost savings. Using more energy-efficient technology to reduce energy consumption
helps a business reduce its energy bill and carbon footprint.
Raised awareness. By using green IT methods and reporting on their use, businesses
set an example in their industries and foster collaboration with other companies on
climate initiatives.
Improved corporate culture. Green IT demonstrates to employees that they work for
an ethical company, which can improve employee morale and retention. Increasing
sustainability through the use of green technology also presents opportunities for more
efficient ways of working.
More sustainable product design. Having green IT goals encourages vendors to
design environmentally friendly technologies and approaches.
Improved reputation. Green technology use creates a good public image, improving
a company's brand perception.
Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. Many customers want to do business
with socially responsible companies that make sustainability a key part of their
strategies.

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

Holistic approach to Greening IT

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

Environmental Consequences of Excessive Computer Usage

Excessive computer usage fuels the consumption of electricity, a significant portion of
which is generated from fossil fuels. This, in turn, leads to more carbon emissions,
further exacerbating climate change.
The environmental consequences of excessive computer usage extend beyond just
carbon emissions. It also contributes to the e-waste problem, as the demand for
upgraded devices encourages a throwaway culture. E-waste not only consumes
landfill space but can also leach toxic materials into the soil and groundwater, leading
to environmental and public health issues.
EXAMPLE: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated in a
2017 report that Americans, on average, replace their smartphones every 18 months.
As a result, over 152 million mobile devices are discarded annually in the country.
Furthermore, excessive usage of computers increases the demand for cloud services
and data centres, which again consume significant amounts of electricity. Moreover,
data centres require a lot of water for cooling purposes, thereby contributing to the
growing water scarcity issues.
Greener Computing Practices to Minimize Environmental Harm
Though the environmental impact of computers can seem daunting, there are various
greener computing practices that we can adopt to minimise this harm.
Energy Efficiency: Opt for devices that are energy efficient. Look for computers and
peripherals that have the Energy Star certification, which is a standard for energy
efficiency. Also, using power management settings can help reduce energy
consumption.
Eco-friendly Disposal: Dispose of your old equipment responsibly. Find an
environmentally friendly recycling facility where e-waste can be disposed of properly.
Extend Lifespan: Keep your computers and devices for longer. A longer lifespan
reduces the frequency of manufacturing new products and hence, the environmental
impact over time.
Cloud Computing: Utilise cloud services instead of on-site data centres. Proactively
select cloud providers that are committed to renewable energy.
Support Sustainability: Purchase from manufacturers who have proven themselves to
be environmentally responsible, support recycling programs and prioritise the use of
recycled or renewable materials.
While these habits are important, creating systemic solutions that aim to reduce the
environmental impact on a larger scale are even more imperative. These can include
public policy changes, increased transparency from manufacturers regarding their
environmental impact, and more research into sustainable computing technologies.

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

GREEN IT Standards and Eco-Labelling

To achieve a green label, products must fulfil a number of crucial criteria related to
production methods, materials, recycling and energy efficiency.
The label uses a simple three-tier system to show how green each product is – ranging
from one star through to the highest three-star accolade.
ISO14024 Standards
Global Ecolabelling Network follows the International Organization for Standard for
type 1 ecolabels. The standard of ISO14024: 2018 recognises the compliance of type 1
environmental labels in regard to their principles and procedures. Once an
organisation proves they are compliant with the standards then they are certificated for
the label.
The international Organisation for Standards also focuses on the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals to which is a plan to eradicate some of the world’s
most troubling issues and concerns. ISO14024 contributes to three out of twelve goals
which are goal 12 – responsible consumption and production, goal 13 -Climate
Change, goal 14 – life below water and goal 15 – life on land.
Ecolabelling
Ecolabelling is a voluntary method of environmental performance certification and
labelling that is practised around the world. An ecolabel identifies products or services
proven to be environmentally preferable within a specific category.
Standard criteria must:
be developed in a transparent process open to the public
address multiple key environmental and health impacts over the product life cycle
be attainable, verifiable and measurable
consider the performance of the product
be published and available for inspection by anyone
be updated regularly to represent environmental leadership
Green IT: Burden or Opportunity?
A holistic and objective assessment reveals that it is better to adopt green IT in the
interest of several opportunities and benefits it offers to businesses, the society and our
planet even if it is a burden. Smart companies are now implementing their green
strategies to innovate, create value and build a competitive advantage.
Facets Of Green IT

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

Green IT refers to computer and information systems and IT applications and

practices that help to improve our environment and enhance the environmental
sustainability. Green IT is an enabler. Beyond creating energy-efficient IT systems,
green IT is also about applying IT to create energy-efficient, environmentally
sustainable business processes and practices, as well as manufacturing, transportation
and buildings.
Green IT can be viewed from three complementary perspectives and embodies three
approaches (see Figure 1):

1. Greening of IT. It focuses on efficient and effective design, manufacture,

operation, use, and disposal of computer and communication systems (including
hardware, software, storage, and networks) aiming for minimal or zero impact on the
environment. This benefits the environment by improving energy efficiency, lowering
GHG emissions, using less harmful materials, reducing resource consumption and
encouraging reuse and recycling. Greening of IT is also known as Green IT 1.0.
2. Greening by IT. This, also known as Green IT 2.0, focuses on using IT and
information systems to support, assist, and leverage applications and activities in
several other domains and industry sectors to reduce energy and resource consumption
and carbon footprint. In addition to being green itself, IT can help create a more
sustainable environment by:
Enabling dematerialization (replacing physical goods by digital goods, virtual online
meetings).
Coordinating, reengineering and optimizing the supply chain, manufacturing activities
and organizational workflows to minimize their environmental impact.
Making business operations, buildings and other systems energy efficient.

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

Helping decision making by analysing, modelling and simulating environmental

impacts.
Providing platforms for eco-management and emissions trading.
Auditing and reporting energy consumption and savings.
Offering environmental knowledge management systems and decision support
systems.
While IT is part of the problem to environmental pollution in terms its energy
consumption, hazardous waste it generates during manufacture, e-waste that can
contaminate the earth and atmosphere, it can be saviour too. In other words, IT is both
a solution and a problem for environmental sustainability. While ICT emissions are
growing faster than average global emissions growth, ICT has the potential to abate
16.5 percent of the world's total emissions by 2020 (http://gesi.org/SMARTer2020).
3. Harnessing IT to promote green awareness and agenda. We should leverage IT
to help create green awareness among stakeholders including students and the public
and promote green initiatives. Examples include: use of social media and interactive
visualization for creating awareness about the impact of environmental degradation,
global warming and climate change; simulation systems for education and training;
and green electronic games.
The scope and promise of green IT is broad, and we can exploit the power of IT in
innovative ways to address mounting environmental issues and make our IT systems –
and their use – greener.
Green IT: An Opportunity to Embrace
As some people consider the green philosophy in general and green demands on
enterprise IT in particular do not excessively or unduly burden IT systems, corporate
IT departments or functional units. In fact, green initiatives let us revisit and examine
our IT systems and their operations in terms of energy efficiency and resource
utilization, and thereby enable us to go lean on IT, minimize IT's energy consumption
and save on energy bills. Until recently, IT functions and activities primarily focussed
on meeting their functional and performance requirements. Very little attention was
paid to aspects such as energy consumption, effective utilization of IT resources, IT's
operational costs or IT's negative impact on environments during its manufacturing,
use, reuse and disposal. For safeguarding our environment, we now need to address
these neglected or overlooked aspects as well.
Several case studies on greening efforts reveal that businesses realize cost savings and
improve their public image besides reducing their environmental (carbon) footprint.
For instance, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) research report
the SMARTer2020, released in December 2012, identifies and evaluates ICT-enabled
green solutions across six major sectors of the economy: power, transportation,

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE
 UNIT-1/CS-347/2023-24

manufacturing, consumer and service, agriculture, and buildings. The report

emphasizes that ICT is a critical tool in facilitating the transition to a low-carbon
economy and provides specific guidance to policy makers on actions they can take to
realize the potential of green IT.
To illustrate the opportunities that ICT presents to reduce carbon emissions, let's
consider the transportation area. Through the use of smart automation and driving,
real-time traffic alerts, and the ICT-enabled green logistics systems, IT helps to reduce
total mileage and the amount of fuel required to transport people and goods. Making
available on mobile devices a mash up of online maps with real-time traffic data
enable users to optimize routing decisions, reduce fuel consumption, and lower
emissions. Furthermore, the adoption of telecommuting and video conferencing
eliminates transportation needs. All of these contribute to reductions in energy use
and, accordingly, reductions in GHG emissions while offering convenience and other
benefits.
A holistic and objective assessment would reveal that even if one feels burdened with
'go green' initiatives and demands, it is better to adopt them in the interest of several
opportunities and benefits it offers to the businesses, the society and our planet.
Smart companies are adopting an environmental strategy to innovate, create value and
build a competitive advantage. Greening of – and by – IT will soon be necessities –
not options. Green initiatives are becoming a key agenda for many enterprises, and
enterprises need to develop and implement the green IT strategy that is aligned with
their business strategy and goals.
To help create a more sustainable environment, IT professionals must recognise green
IT's philosophy and potential and embrace it innovatively. Executives and policy
makers need to develop, implement and support sound green IT strategies and
policies. Even simple steps that one individual or organization takes can make a huge
difference when leveraged across the vast number of individuals and organizations
across the world.

Nida Khan
Dept. of CSE