Are Solution Providers, VARs and IT Consultants Ready for Environmental Certifications? - Getting Behind IT
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Let’s say CompTIA, or some other organization, creates and
implements a green IT standards program, complete with accreditation or
certification. Is there enough support across the channel and the
industry to adopt it?
Bova admits the process itself of creating a standard will take some
effort. Getting solution providers and vendors to agree on the
standard, and vendors to agree on the value of having it, would be a
challenge, she says.
That’s one issue. Another is residual skepticism from years and years
of arguments over how much environmental protection there should be.
Regardless of the momentum of recent years around finding solutions for
resource depletion and climate change, not everyone agrees the
environment or the planet needs to be saved.
Thibodeaux believes the argument stage is all but over, as more and
more people reach the conclusion that solutions are needed. Those
solutions, especially around energy efficiency, will have a major role
for IT to play, he says.
Combine that with the prediction that customers will start demanding
green credentials from product and service suppliers, and the question
of whether a certification is needed pretty much answers itself.
IBM’s Lechner says he would certainly get behind an IT certification effort and would want to be involved in shaping it.
“We’d gladly participate,” says Lechner. “We think it’s important to establish standards.”
Lechner points out that IBM has been working with the Environmental
Protection Agency on an Energy Star designation for servers. The vendor
hopes to follow that with Energy Star standards for storage systems, he
adds.
Katie Dumala, vice president of marketing services at distributor Tech
Data, says her company has been having a conversation internally about
the prospect of an IT certification. Tech Data would likely support an
industrywide standard, provided it doesn’t place unreasonable demands
on solution providers, she says.
“If it was a reasonable program—absolutely, I think we would,” she says. “In concept, it’s a great idea.”
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