Drivers of Green IT

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Green Processes

Green Processes are operations and activities that an organization performs, focusing on Green thinking and environmental consciousness. These Green Processes have usually been reengineered from older ones to reduce the company’s environmental impact and CO2 emissions. They can include both internal and external activities and can be meant to provide benchmarks and lead-by-examples to help others near the organization to follow their lead (Unhelkar, 2011a). A device goes through three major phases in the IT asset lifecycle; Procurement, Operation and Disposal (Unhelkar, 2011a). A good beginning, or procurement, of an IT asset both assure the environmental responsibility of the asset, as well as it aids for the future phases of the IT asset’s lifecycle. According to Unhelkar (2011a), end-user devices are one of the major IT products that affects the environment and he continues to state, along with Kristiansson (2008) and HP (2011), that it is important to focus on buying low-powered devices and choosing the most environmentally friendly ones to make up for some of the negative effects. In addition, the device should be manufactured in biodegradable material, and should easily be recycled (HP, 2011; Unhelkar, 2011a). Murugesan (2008) agrees with this statement of selecting and evaluating suppliers, and argues that a trend is that companies are taking it to the next level, demanding from their suppliers to actively become more environmentally friendly in the way of doing business. HP (2011) recommends to only to buy from environmentally friendly vendors.

Green Consortiums

This is the section that allows organizations to lead the change. Consortiums allow organizations to join and lead the changes with already existing standards and initiatives, showing consumers that they are serious and may even invite suppliers or others in their environment to follow their lead (Unhelkar, 2011a). Protocols are international agreements, formed by political leaders from the entire world that bind countries to certain emissions controls and carbon reduction plans. An example is the well-known Kyoto Protocol, where the main aim is to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases to a level that would prevent danger to the climate (Unhelkar, 2011a). In addition to protocols, standards provide a framework for organizations to aid in environmental management and also provide a benchmark for companies to compare themselves to others, both internationally and domestic. An example is the ISO 14000:2004 family that is the most common for environmental frameworks (Unhelkar, 2011a; Unhelkar, 2011b).

The Balanced Scorecard Model

Kaplan & Norton (1996a) states that a Balanced Scorecard should be derived from an organization’s unique strategy. By using the Balanced Scorecard, the strategy and vision of the company can be converted into performance measures that include both outcome measures and the drivers of these measures. For a strategy to be successful, it needs to consider financial ambitions, processes to be improved, markets served and the people in the organization that actualize the strategy (Niven, 2007). The Balanced Scorecard uses all these aspects by considering both internal and external aspects (Olve & Sjöstrand, 2006). Every perspective should contain four different sections: objectives, measures, targets and initiatives. For employees to be able to act upon the organization’s vision, translating the strategy and mission of the company into objectives is the first step in the creation of each perspective. Strategies like “an empowered organization” (Kaplan & Norton, 1996b, p. 76) is hard to realize in practice and senior executives should therefore create understandable and actionable objectives, along with defined measures to keep track of the progress of reaching each goal (Kaplan & Norton, 1996b).

Research Philosophy

Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2009) argue that the research philosophy of a research contains assumptions about how the authors view the world and this view should underpin the research strategy of the work. The research philosophy of this study is direct realism, as it takes the viewpoint that things exist independently of the human mind (Saunders et al., 2009). The authors believe that the Green IT practices found through the secondary data and the empirical findings, which will be discussed below, exist in spite of what the practitioners, for example the interviewees, believe and perceive Green IT to be. However, the authors realize that Green IT is a dubious concept that may result in Green IT practices being interpreted differently and thereby used differently

Method Choice

Saunders et al. (2009) explains that quantitative and qualitative data can be used for data collection and analysis. The authors have chosen to use qualitative data collection and analysis techniques in order to find and understand techniques and concepts of Green IT practices and to be able to find the IT practices that are considered to be “green” by Swedish organizations. Since Green IT is a dubious concept, a qualitative method choice will allow the authors to get more accurate findings that will provide context to the thesis. This thesis is built upon multi-method qualitative study as it uses two data collection techniques and one analysis procedures (Saunders et al., 2009). Two different data collection techniques have been used in order to ensure triangulation of data.

Table of Contents :

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Background
    • 1.1.1 Green IT
  • 1.2 Problem Statement
  • 1.3 Purpose
  • 1.4 Research Question
  • 1.5 Perspective
  • 1.6 Definitions
• 2 Frame of Reference
  • 2.1 Drivers of Green IT
  • 2.2 Green IT Practices
    • 2.2.1 Green Processes
    • 2.2.2 Green Data Centers
    • 2.2.3 Green Consortiums
  • 2.3 The Balanced Scorecard
  • 2.3.1 The Balanced Scorecard Model
• 3 Method
  • 3.1 Research Philosophy
  • 3.2 Research Approach
  • 3.3 Research Design
    • 3.3.1 Research Purpose
    • 3.3.2 Research strategy
    • 3.3.3 Method Choice
    • 3.3.4 Time Horizon
  • 3.4 Data Collection Techniques
    • 3.4.1 Secondary Data
    • 3.4.2 Empirical Data
  • 3.5 Credibility of Research
  • 3.6 Data Analysis
• 4 Results
  • 4.1 Company A
  • 4.2 Company B
  • 4.3 Company C
  • 4.4 Company D
• 5 Analysis
  • 5.1 Green IT Practices and Drivers
  • 5.2 Green IT Balanced Scorecard Perspectives
  • 5.3 Initiatives and Objectives
• 6 Conclusion
• 7 Discussion

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Green IT Balanced Scorecard A model developed for the Swedish environment