Green IT is a great initiative for the protection of the environment, but many are asking themselves how it can benefit companies, if not morally. But there are a lot of ways Green IT can benefit companies, and that’s what we are going to see today.
Green IT fits into the ESG standards of a company. As Investopedia defines it, ESG standards are environmental, social and governance criteria used by investors to evaluate a company’s behavior regarding the environment and the organization’s stakeholders. But how can taking initiative regarding ESG standards bring value to a company?
McKinsey gives 5 ways that the implementation of an ESG strategy can contribute to a company’s growth:
- Top-line growth: products, whether the company is B2C or B2B, are more attractive. A Wharton study shows that 70% of consumers would be ready to pay 5% more for a “green” product compared to an ordinary one with the same qualities.
- Cost reduction: the company will be able to save money by reducing its water and energy consumption. The company 3M, for example, has been able to save nearly 2.2 billion dollars since implementing its pollution reduction plan in 1975.
- Legal intervention limitation: the organization will be able to limit legal intervention in case of regulations, for which the financial risk varies from 25 to 60% of profits.
- HR: talent attraction will be easier, and the existing employees will be more motivated, thus increasing productivity.
- Investment optimization: ESG standards allow for a better capital allocation and limits investments that won’t pay off because of environmental risks.
But where to begin regarding ESG? According to Selina Yuan from Alibaba Cloud, cloud computing and IaaS are a good start. Indeed, as we explained in a previous article, the cloud allows a company to reduce its carbon footprint, notably by adapting to its traffic. For example, according to Accenture, transferring workloads to a public cloud can potentially help saving 65% energy and reduce carbon emissions by more than 84%. For its part, IaaS helps a company avoid buying and maintaining complex equipment, which naturally leads to more greenhouse gas emissions.
Many actions can be taken regarding ESG standards, but the key is choosing the ones which are best suited for your company and its mode of operations. That’s what we’ll examine in our next article.
