Green IT – Sustainability and IT Industry in India

 Dr Archana Verma

Why should the Indian IT industry sustainability into its business policy? What do some leaders from within the IT industry and from outside think about it? In the following passages we present some discussions on these questions

 The Cornerstone

The consciousness about sustainability in the Indian industry circles has been a rather slow development, with many leaders still thinking about it as limited to the CSR initiative. However, the major industry leaders including those in the IT sector are now beginning to rise to the alarming situation that has emerged in the era of climate change. They have begun to take concrete initiatives in making sustainability policies not only as a CSR initiative, but as a cornerstone policy of their industrial functions.

 

“India has the capacity to meet half of the world’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) by itself and it has made significant progress in this direction. UK is committed to stand by India in meeting this challenge.”

Jan Thompson, Deputy High Commissioner to India, UK

With the political leadership of India taking a decisive role in showing commitment towards building a sustainable economy, many industry leaders have come forward to making this commitment into a reality. More than anything else, the world has come to a stage when sustainability is not just an option to be followed, but a mandatory way of life to be adopted. The planet can’t wait any longer and if the industrial economy has to grow, it has to grow in a sustainable manner.

“We are focusing on the holistic approach to reduce the carbon emission using renewable energy. We will be reducing the carbon emissions by 15℅ in upcoming years. In our newly set up Chennai plant we use 40 ℅ of solar energy.”

--Rudrajeet Singh, President & CEO, BMW India

IT Manufacturing

In terms of green IT, the first issue that comes to mind is the need for sustainable policy to be adopted in the manufacturing of the products. When we talk about the IT products, the material of the IT products needs to be recyclable. Besides, they have to use minimal energy. If the energy being used is renewable, it’s the best option. Besides, the environment of the industry is often polluted and the factories emit gases which cause pollution. All these have to be taken care of.

“Sustainability offers great opportunities for business process to leverage their innovation capacity and to address the challenges of climate change as a business opportunity.”

--Vishvesh Prabhakar, MD & Partner, Accenture Strategy India

 

“Businesses have to build sustainable economy. At Sterlite we definitely have challenges in terms of Green supply chain. Therefore, I believe there’s a big responsibility on us.”

--Akanksha Sharma, CSR & Sustainability, Sterlite Technologies

Now we have some prominent IT organisations which are making their products such as laptops, printers and camera with recycled material. Further, there are companies which have begun to use energy saving technology in the manufacture of their products. There are companies which are making purifiers for the factory environment. All these are contributing positively towards sustainability.

Awareness

While the most leading names in the IT industry have begun to follow sustainability as a policy, there is still a slew of smaller organisations which have to be made aware of the value of sustainability for the industry. The biggest challenge is to stop the poisonous chemicals and gaseous emissions from the factories. For this, technological innovations have to be made to build manufacturing units which follow a sustainable model. In order to awareness about necessity of sustainability, conferences and exhibits have to be organised so that the general industrial population can understand and adopt sustainability as a way of life.

This has to be ingrained as an essential part of our living and not just an initiative because the government wants it. The entire IT industry has to come together and work together towards this goal. Revenue generation has to be done in a sustainable form; not in a way so that revenue generation oversteps the needs of sustainability.