Three Laws for Green IT in the 21st Century

The WWF (World Wildlife Fund) has been a constant supporter of Green IT initiatives around the world. WWF in partnership with HP (Hewlett-Packard) has been focused on identifying potential sources to reduce CO₂ emissions in its drive towards a sustainable 21^st century-IT society.

In one of its reports on Green IT, the WWF mentions the following rules that could serve as a framework for conceptualizing a Green IT Strategy. These rules reference Newton’s Three Laws of Motion and can be seen as a guide to a Green IT strategy.

      The First Law : Sustainable IT solutions need to be purposely used for CO₂ reductions to take place.

[Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.]

For people to start using sustainable IT solutions, governments need to ensure that these solutions are implemented, and not just spoken about. No change will take place unless companies start to use sustainable IT solutions.

     The Second Law : The amount of support that is needed to implement sustainable IT solutions depends on how much old companies and policy makers are obstructing necessary change (due to fear of losing influence and money).

[The relationship between an object’s mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma]

There is a need for a critical mass of stakeholders to push solutions forward to balance out the influence from opposing stakeholders. These companies can become a powerful force against sustainable IT transformative change.

     The Third Law : For each IT solution used, there is a counter effect that can either strengthen or weaken the momentum towards a low-carbon society.

[For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.]

It is important for companies and governments to apply carefully those strategies that enable further reduction in CO₂ emissions, through constant assessment and feedback.

Although, there are no strict guidelines for Green Computing, these rules can be observed by companies, institutions, and governments as a means to move forward to implement and take up a long-lasting action towards reducing their Carbon Footprint. 

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