IT in India Is 'going Green' really the way forward?





IT in India Is 'going Green' really the way forward? Date: Friday , May 04, 2012 Although much effort has gone into making IT more energy efficient, there is still a great deal of skeptics associated with turning energy efficient. More than the cost of technology, the bigger problem lies with the awareness levels and culture surrounding it. Decision makers and probable adopters of Green IT practices in India don’t seem to be too much convinced about the business benefits. This is evident from the fact that the concept finds its place only in few large enterprises. The champions of ‘Green IT’ believe that rising cost of energy will force users to look at the concept more seriously. But until and unless the apprehensions surrounding Green IT are put to rest, the rate of adoption will continue to be dismal. Some organizations which have put in serious efforts have emerged as success stories. What is needed is a concerted effort in technology design and policy making. Both public and private sector organizations along with the government will have to play a bigger role in making it happen. Success will depend on how well companies understand and address the challenges and apprehensions around it. Challenges and Apprehensions around Green IT Adoption According to Bill Weihl, Google’s Green Energy Czar, information and communications technologies (ICT) currently account for about two percent of global energy use; however, ICT is the fastest growing segment (Abazorius, 2011). In India, with falling prices of IT equipment like PCs (desktops and servers), laptops, printers, and scanners etc., the usage is bound to increase multi-folds. Similarly, with falling prices of mobile handsets and calling rates, the number of connections and in-turn the global gas emissions is bound to multiply. According to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) 2010 report, sales of electronic products in countries like China and India and across continents such as Africa and Latin America are set to rise sharply in the next 10 years. Further, the report also warns about the challenges associated with e-waste generation and disposal. The report predicts that by 2020 e-waste from old computers will have jumped by 200 - 400 percent from 2007 levels, and by 500 percent in India while, e-waste from discarded mobile phones will be about seven times higher than 2007 levels and, in India, 18 times higher. Therefore, the real challenge for ICT industry would be to control carbon footprints. Still, majority of the Indian organizations don’t have a green strategy in place. Most have adopted some or the other Green initiative, but don’t have a formal strategy. "I believe cost savings and environmental sustainability are both important. If there is no cost saving, there won’t be any takers of it. Green IT reduces resource consumption thus saving cost and reducing emissions. Thus, there is a strong case for Green IT," says Rakesh Dhyani, CEO of Celerity Infosolutions, an IT Services company operating in Delhi/NCR. But going green is not cheap. According to Gopalratnam (2011), extensive alteration to existing infrastructure such as datacenters, computer systems, building power systems and air conditioning are capital extensive. There is no doubt that Green IT is good for environment and financial sustainability but there is very little documented on the extent of money going down the drain due to lack of awareness about Green IT. Businesses can be wasting money by not understanding what’s going behind the IT (Kline, 2011). The real challenge organizations face is to determine the cost savings from Green IT initiatives. It’s important to automate the audit and reporting mechanism of emissions, which, in most cases is done manually. The problem becomes more complex and consolidation becomes impossible if done manually, if the organization operations are geographically dispersed across locations. Success Stories Organizations worldwide have been trying to translate ideas pertaining to Green IT to reality. Various strategies around virtualization, power management, optimized printing, e-waste disposal etc. are being formulated and implemented worldwide to save costs and maintain the ecosystem. Google Inc., the search engine giant has saved millions of dollars by adopting best practices and making simple changes to its ‘Points of Presence’ data centers. As part of the initiative, Google spent a total of $25000 in one of its POPs, small and medium size data centers, to optimize air conditioning. A further $25000 investment was made to but plastic curtains, air return extension and so in. This initiative was undertaken without any downtime and returned a savings of $67000 per year. It also avoided emitting tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Similarly, Oracle has followed a two step approach to improve efficiency, 1) replace aging equipment with latest ones, implement virtualization and improve power and cooling efficiency 2) Reconfigure datacenter spaces with modular flexible design. This has resulted in reductions in datacenter space of up to 66 percent and decreases in operating expenditures of up to 30 percent, thus avoiding the cost of building new space. In 2009, NIIT Ltd. developed a tool known as virtual labs (vLabs) which allowed the participants to gain practical hands-on experience on hardware and software in a real-time environment. Since NIIT Education Centers were spread all across the country, deploying identical IT infrastructure was neither cost effective nor green. Built on the concept of virtualization, the tool can mirror almost any hardware or software configuration–even custom environments or proprietary application modules. Virtual Lab has helped in reducing the number of deployments by having centralized infrastructure and in turn reduced carbon footprints. Implemented at a cost of 1.3 crores, the returns in the form of power savings and reduced carbon emissions have surpassed the expectations manifold. In early 2010, Wipro Infotech, a leading provider of ICT services launched 100% recyclable desktops, manufactured with materials free of toxic chemicals first time in India. It took more than two years of time, effort and investment to come out with this kind of product. Similarly, Cisco Systems, HCL Technologies, Infosys Technologies, IndusInd Bank etc. have made significant investments in Green IT. Future of Green IT It is evident from the above discussion that there is a strong business case for Green IT implementation – promoting corporate image through compliance and reducing resource utilization resulting in lower costs. At a user level, some simple best practices can make a big impact on the environment. At an enterprise level, it’s important to realize that maintaining a data center is expensive and time consuming and therefore organizations which do not have data center management as part of its core activities can outsource to experts. In the changing IT eco-system, businesses will focus on its core activities. Concepts like Cloud Computing will propel the use of centralized IT infrastructure and thereby, eliminate the massive standalone IT deployments. Further, government can play a key role by creating awareness for the long term benefits of Green IT. Bibliography: Abazorius, A. (2011), Google and Green Energy, CSAIL, http://www.csail.mit.edu/node/1416; Gopalratnam, V.C. (2011), CleanTech - Green IT for a Healthier Environment, Silicon India, pp. 36-37; Kline, S. (2011), Going Green with your IT infrastructure, New Hampshire Business Review, www.nhbr.com; UNEP (2010), Recycling – From E-Waste to Resources, http://www.unep.org/PDF/PressReleases/E-Waste_publication_screen_FINALVERSION-sml.pdf The article is co-authored by Pallavi Dhyani, Business Analyst, NIIT