Are Solution Providers, VARs and IT Consultants Ready for Environmental Certifications? - Paint IT Green
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If solution providers are to paint their businesses green, what
would a certification that recognizes industrywide accepted standards
look like?
It wouldn’t just be about selling products with an Energy Star stamp,
say supporters, though selling and servicing energy-efficient
technology certainly would be one of the criteria.
“It is more about making sure there is some consistency in the
market about the green IT message,” says Bova, who cites other
potential criteria as tools, processes, methodologies and the vendors
with which solution providers choose to work.
With that in mind, a green-standards stamp would take into account what
a solution provider sells and how it does business. So in addition to
recommending and implementing green practices, the solution providers
would also live by those standards.
For instance, Thibodeaux says, does the solution provider have a policy
in place that regulates when it’s OK to print out e-mail? What are the
provider’s data backup practices? How efficient are the power supplies
and monitors in use? How much waste does the company create, and how
does it handle that waste?
Such practices, if implemented with a green tint within the providers’
own businesses, can be passed on to the end-user customers, he says.
Developers of a certification program might take cues from Sun’s Eco
Advantage Program, which trains channel partners selling SPARC systems
on data center power use and cooling, and the delivery of consolidation
and virtualization services. The program equips partners with the tools
to conduct eco-assessments and ROI calculations for customers.
IBM, too, is taking up the green mantle with a host of initiatives that
includes energy-efficient data centers, virtualization technology and
services, and even financing for green IT projects. The initiatives are
part of the vendors Project Big Green, a $1 billion investment by the
vendor to increase the efficiency of IBM's products and services.
To complement the technical efforts, the vendor in April announced it
is working with partners to develop a green partner specialty program.
The program, which Rich Lechner, the vice president in charge of energy
efficiency technology and services at IBM, says IBM expects to roll out
in September, includes training and certification for a range of skills
related to green IT.
The ability to implement server and storage virtualization and
consolidation will be among those skills, says Lechner. The program
also will recognize demonstrable skills in energy management skills,
energy use assessments, data center redesigns, as well as the ability
to recognize and recommend when a customer needs a thermal analysis—a
specialized endeavor that IBM itself would conduct, he says.
“Those are the kinds of skills we are training our partners on,” Lechner says.
Certification might also take into account how solution providers
address e-waste— the disposal of computer equipment. Does the provider
have in place, or partner with a company that offers a zero-landfill
program that calls for recycling, and when appropriate, remarketing?
Wacker of EDS points out that recognized environmental standards
already exist for companies that choose to operate with a green
mind-set. That standard is the ISO 14001, which essentially consists of
an
environmental accounting system through which companies record and
track their practices and processes. EDS, he says, is pursuing ISO
14001 certification.
“What ISO 9001 did for quality management,” Wacker says, “ISO 14001 will do for environmental management.”
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