Towards Green ICT Strategies

Only one third of government programmes and business initiatives across 22 OECD countries plus the European Commission focus on using ICTs across the economy and society in areas where there is major potential to dramatically improve performance, despite the fact that this is where ICT have the greatest potential to improve environmental performance.

Abstract

Government programmes and business initiatives concentrate on reducing energy consumption and CO 2 emissions during ICT use (close to two-thirds of the total).Reducing environmental impacts of ICT disposal, and using ICT applications to reduce energy consumption and CO 2 emission during distribution and use of non-ICT goods, are each the target of around one-quarter of the total.The high concentration of programmes and initiatives targeting energy consumption shows that many of them have both economic and environmental rationales.However with the global recession, energy prices have fallen sharply (in May 2009, oil prices were less than 40% of those in July 2008), capital and credit have tightened to choking point, and both public and private sectors may be less likely to invest in green ICTs and ICT applications.Other environmental impact categories such as biodiversity, water or land use are rarely targeted, despite ICT impacts (e.g.water consumption in ICT production, or the impact of dematerialisation on land use).Government programmes cover the domains of R&D, ICT diffusion, and skills and awareness, with many having multiple objectives: Stimulating R&D and innovation: R&D programmes are the most common for governments, focussing on developing resource-efficient ICTs (e.g.Japan"s Green IT Project), but also resource saving applications such as smart homes, smart buildings, or smart transportation systems.This set of programmes also includes government Green ICT procurement often designed to increase innovation among ICT providers, encouraging co-operation between firms and academia, and they also include support for the internationalisation of R&D and innovation. Increasing Green ICT diffusion and ICT applications: This is the largest group overall and includes Green ICT diffusion to businesses, including sharing best practices and developing and using measuring tools, and eco labels and standards (with a total of over one-half of programmes).Governments also act as a lead user, as well as promoting the diffusion of ICT applications to individuals and households.Finally, governments are encouraging organisational change including promoting tele-working, e-government, and e-business. Box 1. Denmark's Action Plan for Green ITFocus area 1, "Greener IT use", includes four -initiatives‖ aiming at reducing the environmental impact of ICTs: The first aims at reducing the environmental impact of ICT usage within companies, mainly by promoting green ICTs to businesses. The second focuses on promoting greener ICT usage by children and young people through an information campaign. The third focuses on Green ICT guidelines for public authorities. The last initiative in focus area 1 aims at providing a -knowledge base for energy and CO2 calculation‖.Focus area 2, "IT solutions for a sustainable future", includes three initiatives aiming at reducing society's impact on the environment. The first aims at R&D on Green ICT, pervasive computing and e-Government. The second focuses on the export of Green ICTs know-how and technology. The last initiative concerns international conferences on Green ICT hosted by Denmark.Besides those two focus areas, in the eighth initiative of the Action Plan for Green IT, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation plans to take the lead in using Green ICT in its own activities, in particular reducing annual electricity consumption by 10%.