Environmental awareness is growing in the corporate office, and that means
end-user organizations are starting to look to IT services and product suppliers
to help them go green.
This puts the onus on solution providers to come
up with technology and processes with as little an impact on the environment as
possible. The problem is that often solution providers don’t really know where
to start.
With that in mind, software vendor Actuate, which specializes
in business intelligence and Internet rich applications, has developed
technology that solution providers can use to help customers determine the
sustainability of their businesses.
The intent is to guide customers
through a process of figuring out wasteful practices they can eliminate and
sustainable ones that they can enhance and replicate. Ultimately, customers
improve their green bona fides, and as a result, improve the sustainability of
their businesses.
Seema Haji, sustainability expert and senior technical
marketing manager at Actuate, says the vendor, in developing and marketing
Actuate for Sustainability Management, is striving to fill a leadership gap
among technology companies.
“Green IT is a huge trend right now,” Haji
says. Yet, she adds, vendors by and large haven’t stepped up to the plate to
help customers go green. “I noticed very few IT vendors actually have a
solution.”
Actuate for Sustainability Management, which is based on
Actuate’s Performancesoft Suite and BIRT products, uses more than 100 built-in
metrics to determine sustainability and allows companies to add their own custom
metrics.
Through the application’s interactive dashboard, users can enter
and track data to determine a company’s carbon emissions and consumption of
electricity and water use. With the information in hand, users can then go about
developing plans to make their companies more environmentally
friendly.
Haji says Actuate introduced the application to partners and
customers at a company event in August, eliciting a very enthusiastic
response.
“I was actually impressed with the reception that it got,” says
Haji. “People got the content, and they recognized the need for
it.”
Customers and channel partners alike are eager to get their hands on
technology to sustainable green practices, she says. For end-user companies,
going green is becoming an important way to differentiate their
brands.
“The No. 1 reason that customers want it is to get a competitive
advantage,” Haji says. “It’s becoming extremely important.”
And that
means the primary reason to go green is no longer to just save money. Technology
companies and solution providers found in recent years that to get customers to
implement green technologies, they had to make a pocketbook pitch. They have
made the case that technology that draws less processing power and uses less
electricity saves on energy costs in the long run, an effective appeal as energy
costs have risen.
But in recent months, anecdotal evidence and research
are showing a growing interest in going green to enhance corporate image. In a
recent survey of business buyers and consumers, research firm Hansa GCR found
that technology buyers are thinking green.
Hansa
GCR found that 92 percent of 1,200 consumers in households of at least $50,000
indicated the environment is a factor in buying technology products. Sixty-four
percent of business decision makers said that being perceived as green helps
their company brand.
The study also identified a lack of leadership among
technology vendors in getting out the green message because when asked,
respondents typically couldn’t name vendors they perceive as green.
This
finding, says Paul Schwarz, Ph.D, vice president of sustainability research and
green market insights at Hansa GCR, indicates there is plenty of opportunity for
vendors to take charge in the area of green technology.
And that is precisely
what Actuate is hoping to do. Haji, who writes a blog on green tips, says the lack of
leadership is evident, and it explains why her company’s customers and channel
partners are so enthusiastic about her company’s sustainability
application.
As a bonus, in measuring sustainability the application reaches
beyond those areas commonly thought of as green. It takes into consideration
economic factors by measuring how well a company controls costs, standardizes
processes and employs compliance best practices.
The application also looks
at the human factors of sustainability, which include employee satisfaction,
training and community outreach.
The idea is that sustainability not only
around energy conservation and greenhouse has emission reductions, but also
social and economic factors that contribute to the ultimate success of a
company, Haji says.
Click here to read about five ways to raise green IT awareness.
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