Read the full story at TechTarget.
IT contributes significantly to the overall carbon footprint of an organization, according to the new Forrester Research report “The State of IT Environmental Sustainability, 2023.” For example, IT has an outsized contribution to Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in the financial services sector, which has a heavy data center backbone. Data center energy use represented 55% of Mastercard’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in 2021.
At a broad level, IT’s environmental impact — from carbon emissions to toxic waste — comes from three primary sources:
- The resources and energy necessary for hardware manufacturing as well as software development.
- The energy consumption necessary for running and maintaining IT hardware and software over its lifespan.
- IT’s contribution to waste at end of life.
Secondary sources of environmental impact and carbon emissions include the construction of IT-related facilities, such as data centers, and the transportation of IT-related goods.
Emerging tech will aid in the observability of new data, increase efficiencies in facilities management and manufacturing, and directly reduce carbon emissions in some cases.
As a result, tomorrow’s technology leaders must step up and coordinate partners, platforms and practices to advance their organization’s environmental sustainability goals. This is not only to help lower the carbon footprint of IT but also to use IT to aid in the sustainability efforts across any organization and any industry.
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