Our planet is facing environmental crisis. The researchers around the world have started
recognizing a relationship between the deteriorating earth’s environment with the human
.1400 years back Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH) raised the same concept and gave
mankind the message of love, harmony and respect towards the nature, mankind and all of the
creations. Environment deterioration is a challenge the world is facing as a whole.
in the age of information and technology, a lifestyle with spe
ed, luxury and comfort.
Technology is changing very fast to bring economical growth i.e. increase in the level of living
standard of the people of the world. The countries that are more technologically advanced are
economically strong nations of the world.
advancement of technology and its careless use, there is an increase in the environmental
related problems. Significant material, electricity and water consumption by the IT industry is
nmental problems.
This paper is an attempt to explore the environmental related problems pertaining to
information technology. For this purpose, I have used information oriented sampling for
selecting the case for conducting the research. The case of IBM is selected because IBM is one
of the best rated Green IT companies providing green solutions to almost every aspect of life
and linking different stakeholders at nationals and international levels.
t deerioration
PAPER OBJECTIVES
Objectives of the paper are as follow:
1.To explore environmental concerns regarding the information technology.
2.To explore material consumption, energy consumption, water consumption of IT operations
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The purpose of the research is to explore the “Impacts of Information Technology on the
Environment” so the research nature is Exploratory Research. This paper required a case study
approach because of the following reasons:
1.
To investigate green IT aspects in its real
-time context.
2.
To get real time in
-depth knowledge about the environmental impacts of computing.
The case study approach didn’t limit us to conduct qualitative analysis but we have also
performed quantitative ana
lysis on the real time data of water consumption, electricity
consumption.INTRODUCTION
Human beings have the right to get the benefit from the resources on the earth like fire, water,
lands, forest, sea, sunlight, oceans etc. But the usage of the resources subject to establishing
the degree of need and the impact of usage on the environment. Earth is created in balance.
There are biogeochemical cycles going on the earth and because of these cycles life on earth
has become possible. Natural cycles l
ike oxygen cycle, carbon cycle, and nitrogen cycle are
perfect example of the well balanced systems on earth due to which life on earth becomes
possible but from last few decades with the careless use of resources by mankind these well
balanced systems are
disturbed giving birth to the problems like increased pollution.
We are living in the age of information and technology, a lifestyle with speed, luxury, comfort.
Human being is now able to cover the distance of months in hours with the help of airplanes,
weeks in hours with the help of cars and motor vehicles and can make eatables quickly and in
less time in microwaves. Technology is changing so fast that every day we are having exciting
and new models of mobile phones, computers and laptops and every kind of electronics with
new functionalities. Communication is so easy that even our relatives are far away we can see
them through webcam and talk to them through mobile phones and voice chats and e
-mails.
Due to globalization and ease of doing work there ar
e just no boundaries left for doing
business. One being living in Pakistan can conduct business in USA. We have fans and air
-
conditioners to safe ourselves from the outside heat; cool breezes are just click away even in
scorching heat in the summer. The li
st of benefits enjoyed by human beings now-
a-days goes
on and on and can never end so do the impacts on environment caused by these activities.
Today, the increased technology needs in everything we use has resulted in increased number
of IT companies wh
ich is economical very good and has created lots of job opportunities
worldwide but the other side of mirror is darker as it has led to increased carbon emissions in
the atmosphere. Carbon emissions are not only limited to factories, agriculture but sectors like
Information Technology, telecommunication, film industry, hospitals or any kind of business is
responsible for the emissions of greenhouse gases in atmosphere and other environment
problems. There is no single sector that can be excluded from being responsible towards
environment and so is the case with Information Technology. The need for the instant access to
the information has resulted in the growing demand of hardware, software and IT services.
Because the virtual nature of IT based processes, IT industry is considered to be environmental
friendly but the fact is IT industry’s own global footprint is currently 2% of the global emissions
reported by Gartner. Contribution of air traffic in green house gas emission is also 2 %.
(Book Green IT, Kelly Chain) Being an IT engineer one may feel that he is not involved in the
crime of murdering the earth environment but he has no idea how his organization is involved
and what role it is playing in deteriorating the earth’s green environment so it’s not okay to just
feel happy that you are not the part of those polluting factories. It is very much important to
know that IT industry is too harming the environment of the earth. Ignorance is a curse and
awareness is a blessing. Because if you do not know the problem, you can’t find the solution so
identifying the problem is always the first step. The question is where the problem exists and
how an IT organization is discharging pollution in the environment. All the desktop PCs, servers,
switches in the organiza
tion use electricity to run. The electricity not only result in huge bills but
it also result in the use of more fossil fuels to generate electricity which means more
greenhouse gases in the environment. It may sound that IT industry has indirect relations
hip
with the deteriorating earth’s atmosphere. But this is not the case, let’s see how.
IT operations are not only crucial aspects of the IT organizations alone but almost every kind of
organizations depends on information systems to run their businesses. Where Internet is
needed by all kind of businesses, individuals around the world and that too for 24/7 and the
availability of data and information makes the server’s availability mandatory. In other words
business continuity is one of the main concerns that make the information systems and their
availability very important. If information system gets down it can partially or completely shut
down the operations of the organization and this makes the power usage by the IT operations a
first and foremost is
sue as its impact is significantly large and this is how it is directly
deteriorating earth’s atmosphere.
1
DISCUSSION
Impact of Information Technology on the Environment
According Gartner, there are 1 billion PCs in use worldwide and this is expected to i
ncrease to 2
billion PCs in use worldwide in 2014.With this we expect that ratio of IT contribution towards
the emission of green house gases is expected to increase at an alarming rate. As reported by
Gartner
PCs and monitor
contribute
to 39 % of total IC
T contribution in carbon emissions which
is equal to 49.3 million cars on the road.
2
(Wikipedia, 27 July 2010) A typical PC consumes half of the power for its operations and waste
the rest half as “HEAT” and for the typical server 30% to 40 % of the energy
consumed is
wasted. Now this surely is not a small amount when in the organization thousands of the PC,
Laptops are running and data centers in which number of servers are operating. The heat
emitted as waste arises the demand of air
-conditioning which in
turn increase the power
requirements and the bill associated with it. The more equipment you have that is less efficient
the more heat it will generate and that means that more electricity will be required to cool
those equipments. May be the facts and figures above are surprising but the more surprising
thing is that this heat can be utilized as well. As Engineers we should find the opportunities in
every problem. The Switzerland Company utilized the heat generated from their data centers
to heat the ne
arby swimming pool; now this is called resource utilization. The other reason is
improper power management. Improper power management is utilizing the power more than it
is required. It can be due to human negligence of utilizing the power more than their
requirements e.g. not switching off the lights, AC, computers and laptops when they are not
using them and it can be due to the inefficient design of the electronic devices .e.g. consuming
a lot of power to operate or not able to recognize when the system is in idle state.
3
(Sustainable Information Technology, 2005)UN Studies revealed that a single Computer Screen
Manufacturing consumes 530 pounds of fossil fuels, 48 pounds of chemicals and 3000 pounds
of water. The total material consumed in manufacturing
is more than the weight of the average
car i.e. 3000 pounds
.
One of the Most Toxic material is lead, about 4 to 8 pounds of lead is present in each computer display. Environment issues related to lead are many. It can damage
blood and nervous system of humans.
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