Frankly CSR

We all want our views validated.  In the IT industry that often comes via analyst firms.  A year or so ago when Lawson began looking at the role IT in CSR, very few analysts were talking about it. That’s changing – quickly. Some recent examples include:

At its recent Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Green IT topped Gartner’s list of the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in next few years.  Gartner focused primarily on hardware and data centers.  Green IT occupied the top 10 list with more “traditional” IT topics like business process modeling, metadata and Web platforms.

Forrester recently released a report entitled, Creating a Green IT Action Plan. It’s essentially a “how to” guide CIOs can use to create and implement Green IT programs.  The report has a broader perspective than just hardware and data centers, looking at the role of the IT organization in an organization’s overall CSR initiative.

AMR Research has probably done more than any analyst firm around the area of CSR and sustainability.  AMR launched a green technology research service in 2006 and most recently initiated the Sustainability Peer Forum. Introduced in August 2007,  the forum brings together a variety of environmental and sustainability industry leaders to share and discuss best practices, lessons learned and business strategies that support their sustainability efforts. 

I’m excited about how this focus by analysts will help validate the topic and drive the CSR message to more organizations.  In particular, I hope it will get IT professionals thinking about how they can lead the way.

Jeff

As I mentioned in my previous posting, I’m in Australia for The Green CIO conference, as well as a three-day Lawson user group meeting for customers in Australia and New Zealand. 

The Green CIO conference was a very interesting event.  It included about 200 companies, media outlets, and vendors. The conference had a heavy focus on the environmental impact of hardware (mainly servers) and data centers. That isn’t surprising given that IT represents 2 percent of all electricity consumption in the United States; half of that is from data centers.  

Two presenters mentioned that IT’s environmental footprint is equal to that of the commercial aviation industry.  Of course, IT doesn’t have the same public relations issues as the commercial aviation industry because our environmental impact is a lot less visible to people.  

Reducing the energy consumption of hardware was cited as the “low-hanging fruit” of reducing IT’s environmental impact. That’s probably true, and I would never discourage organizations addressing that issue, but I hope they are also looking more broadly at the role IT can play around CSR. I tried to communicate that message in my presentation. The feedback I received from the conference organizers and participants was very positive, but let me know what you think. 

As I mentioned earlier, I also attended the Lawson Australia-New Zealand user group event. At the event, I delivered a speech very similar to my Green CIO conference presentation.  The roughly 150 participants were a mix of about 50 percent IT leaders and 50 percent business-line leaders. The feedback from participants was two-fold:

1) CSR is moving up on their priority list and is starting to (or already has) get the attention of their senior leadership.

2) They appreciated the insight on how business software can be used as a tool to help manage CSR programs. 

I’m not looking for sympathy, after all I am in beautiful Australia, but during my week in Sydney and on the Gold Coast it’s done nothing but rain. 

G’day mate! 

Jeff