Development of Maturity Model in Green ICT
Hankel, A., Oud, L., Saan, M., & Lago, P. (2014). A Maturity Model for Green ICT: the Case of the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model. Proceedings of the 28th EnviroInfo 2014 Conference, (pp. 1-8)
The author are researchers in the field of green ICT who have worked on several strategies for application of green ICT in the organization. The study discusses the development of a maturity model of green ICT that encompass the attributes of green ICT and the greening of ICT itself. The motivation behind the model is the need to transform the society to an environmentally sustainable one to reduce environmental effects like global warming. The role of green ICT therefore, is to reduce the negative impacts of ICT and increase its positive impacts. This research indicates that this field has received little attention since the percentage effect that ICT has in the atmosphere is little as compared to other organizational processes. The researchers worked with twenty participants drawn fro SURF to create a maturity model for the organization. Through interviews of higher education and research institutions personnel, the findings were used to determine the attributes to be included in the maturity model. After the first drawft of the model was developed, surveys were used to evaluate the model and recommendations adopted into the final maturity model. The study revealed that ICT data centre are responsible for only 20% of the footprint while end users account for 60% of the emissionss. This implies that optimising the impacts of ICT lead to leads to benefits that extend beyond the ICT department to other areas of the organization.
From the study, Hankel, Oud, Saan, & Lago (2014) suggested five maturity levels for quality improvement: initial, repeatable, defined, managed and optimising. The initial level faces the challenge of lacking a stable environment from the organization for green ICT. On the other hand, the highest level is optimised where the whole organization focusses on continuous improvement. This process has three domains of; green ICT in the organization, greening of ICT, greening of operations with ICT and greening of primary processes with ICT. Each domain has attributes that offer maturity insights of green ICT in the organization. The validity of the model was evaluated through an online survey to determine the theoretical sufficiency and quality of the model. Therefore, through identifying weak and strong aspects SURF published a user manual for self-assessment when using the model.
Attributes of Maturity Model in Green ICT
According to the study Hankel, Oud, Saan, & Lago (2014) concluded that most ICT models that exist focuss on the negative aspects of ICT. However, the green approach is based on the positive impacts of ICT and how these can be replicated to organizational processes to reduce the overall emissions. Curry, Conway, Donnellan, Sheridan, & Ellis (2013) adds that models like the Gartner model, Green Grid and UK HM Government focuss mainly on the negative impacts of ICT which accounts for on 2% of total emissions. The models need to be redesigned to focuss on positive aspects of green ICT that lead to 16% reduction in the carbon footprint.
Hankel, Oud, Saan, & Lago (2014) study also reported lack of sufficient literature for analysing the quality of tools and their ability to determine if the intended effects have been achieved or not. The concept of environmental sustainability is wide and multidimensional requiring a complex process to assess the impacts. Hankel, Oud, Saan, & Lago (2014) suggests that quality evaluation of the model should focuss on relevancy of the used attributes, definition or description of attributes and lastly, the completeness of the domain. This strategy allows participants to evaluate the model along the three lines and post suggestions for improvement.
Further, Hankel, Oud, Saan, & Lago (2014) suggest the need to widen the scope of participants to draw quantitative conclusions that can be generalised for the green ICT. This can be improved through simplifying the survey for easy responding of participants and at the same time recruiting valid participants for the study. The smaller scope of respondents limited the findings and generalization of the findings. Holtgrewe (2014) suggests that the changing nature of ICT in organizations creates a wider scope that requires adequate research to analyse the implications on the organization. Researchers have to widen their scope to achieve replicable results for the field. Testing of the model should be designed properly to yield the expected results. Researchers have to capture all the variables in the survey to allow the user to analyse the system and cite proper recommendations for improving the model. Effective application of the recommendations creates a mature model that meets different t needs of the organization and the requirements of other stakeholders within the field of green ICT.
Lastly, Hankel, Oud, Saan, & Lago (2014) call for follow up research to analyse the relevance of other models that exist. Researchers argue that any grand challenge approach should offer directions for future research by opening avenues that allow other researchers to extend the research and offer more insights on the research topic. Through additional research, data can be gathered on the other modles and develop more literature for decision making on green ICT. Such research will open a new avenue for understanding the role of green ICT in achieving sustainable organizational proceses. Saha (2014) suggests that the issue of green ICT requires adequate research to analyse ways of developing sustainable mechanisms that can be applied in organizations. Since the organization evironment is crucial in achieving sustainable ICT outcomes, it is important to ensure that organizational strategies are directed towards the internal processes and challenges that organizations face as a way of addressing these challenges.
Recommendations
Radu, L.D. (2016). Determinants of Green ICT Adoption in Organizations: A Theoretical Perspective. Sustainability, 8(731), 1-16. doi:10.3390/su8080731
The author is a scholar and researcher in the department of research, faculty of economics and business administration in the university of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi. She specializes her research in green ICT, green information systems and audit risk analysis and evaluation. The article focuses and the presence and expansion of ICT use within the context of the organization and the need to have a balanced study on the negatives and positives that it brings to the organization. This entails the application of the environmental criteria or the green ICT to determine the impact that it has on organizations. Sustainability is a common phenomenon that organizations and industries are adopting to ensure that they have strategies which meet the needs of the modern world. This concern is supposed to cover all stakeholders within the context of the organization to develop solutions that can be used to mitigate the challenges that organizations have.
The research methodology of this article entailed analysis of green ICT determinants in organizations through a content analysis of literature review on the topic. The basis of this study was the Gartner report which indicated that the global ICT industry accounts for two percent of the global carbon emissions. This methodology allows systematic application of categorization rules to analyse data, summary and compare the findings to answer the research question. Through an analysis of databases like Science Direct, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, Web Science and ACM Digital Library, the researcher identified 435 pairs on green ICT. Through redundancy reduction and exploring of the articles the research adopted 70 articles with a time frame of between 2008-2015.
The findings of the study indicated that a mixture of both pragmatic and idealist factors influenced management decision to adopt ICT. This indicates that there are general and specific determinants that push adoption of ICT in organizations. The study indicates that most organizations adopt ICT as way of protecting the ecosystem to reduce increased resource exploitation. When the theory of organization motivation is applied to ICT and eco-sustainability then it indicates that the organizations needs are linked to sustainable processes that influence the adoption of green ICT. Since environmental protection is constrained by the law, then organizations are forced to redesign the technologies to comply with the existing regulations. The research revealed both negative and positive impacts of application of the green ICT strategy in organizations. Therefore, this resource creates an insight on the importance of adoption of green ICT in the organizational context.
Determinants of Green ICT Adoption in Organizations
Radu (2016) recommends that the determinants of green ICT within the organization varies from one to another. There are general and specific determinants that managers use to choose specific green ICT strategies to be implemented in the organization. These are classified into three categories: economic, ethical and regulatory. Organizations use this three determinants based on resources, vision of the organization and the industry. Each of these factors plays a role with the above factors to create conditions that management chooses from. The choice that management makes determines the transfer of responsibilities, dynamics of the industry and support systems put in place by the organization for easy adoption. Since each technology has different characteristics, then the cost and green effects of each technology have to be analyzed to determine the most suitable mechanism that suits the organization and meets the three classified factors.
One recommendation that Radu (2016) indicates is that the benefits ofgreen ICT are not immediate but rather exist beyond the rational and pragmatic factors that make organizations to adopt the strategy. Borjesson Rivera, Hakansson, Svenfelt, & Finnveden (2014) suggests that the benefits of any sustainable technology strategy that any organization adopts takes time and is never immediate. This is because it requires time for the technology to diffuse into the organization for the benefits to be realised. Therefore, management needs to realise that sustainable green ICT benefits are not immediate but prolonged since they intended to lead to future rather than immediate benefits. When organisations adopt such strategies, they need to ensure that they put proper strategies in place to create a sustainable environment for the benefits to be realised.
From the limitation of the study, Radu (2016) suggests the need to analyse and determine the role of regulatory organizations in green ICT. Regulating and developing green ICT mechanisms are two differentnt approaches. According to Zailani, Govindan, Iranmanesh, & Shaharudin (2015) there are challenges integrating system process and regulation processes in Green ICT since these are totally differentnt fields. Therefore, there is need for partners in green ICT to work together and develop an open framework for the strategy to work well in organizations. Since the system has to be integrated with other sustainable organizational processes, then there is need for differentnt entities to work together.
According to Radu (2016), successful implementation of green ICT relies on placing environmental concerns in product life cycle development stages. Through iterative review, green ICT strategy can be achieved if designers appraise the sustainability and green nature of the initiative that they are working on. Suryawanshia & Narkhedeb (2015) suggests that climate change affects every sector of the organization pushing the need to adopt sustainable ICT strategies in energy and industrial policies. Researchers are therefore, focusing their resources on achieving the best ICT mechanisms in the organization. This process has created opportunities for organizations to embrace ICT mechanisms.
Lastly, green ICT like any other strategy is prone to implementation barriers within the organization. The level of technology adoption and in some instances resistance to change are some of the factors that affect the adoption of green ICT in organizations. Suryawanshi & Narkhede (2013) adds that challenges like energy saving and organizational needs to influence employee behaviour can prove difficult for implementation of green ICT within organizations. Therefore, management has to work on strategies for addressing these barriers to create conditions for sustainable green ICT initiatives.
References
Borjesson Rivera, M., Hakansson, C., Svenfelt, T., & Finnveden, G. (2014). Including second order effects in environmental assessments of ICT. Environmental Model Software, 56, 105-115.
Curry, E., Conway, G., Donnellan, B., Sheridan, C., & Ellis, K. (2013). Measuring energy efficiency practices in mature data center: A maturity model approach. Computer and Information Sciences, 3, 51-61.
Hankel, A., Oud, L., Saan, M., & Lago, P. (2014). A Maturity Model for Green ICT: The Case of the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model. Proceedings of the 28th EnviroInfo 2014 Conference, (pp. 1-8). Oldenburg, Germany. Retrieved from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1011.728&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Holtgrewe, U. (2014). Invited Commentary New new technologies: the future and the present of work in information and communication technology. New Technology, Work and Employment, 29(1), 9-24.
Radu, L.-D. (2016). Determinants of Green ICT Adoption in Organizations: A Theoretical Perspective. Sustainability, 8(731), 1-16. doi:10.3390/su8080731
Saha, B. (2014). Green Computing. International Journal of Computer Trends and Technol, 14(1), 46-50.
Suryawanshi, K., & Narkhede, S. (2013). Green ICT implementation at educational institution: A step towards sustainable future,” Innovation and Technology in Education (MITE). IEEE International Conference in MOOC, (pp. 251-255).
Suryawanshia, K., & Narkhedeb, S. (2015). Green ICT for Sustainable Development: A Higher Education Perspective. 4th International Conference on Eco-friendly Computing and Communication Systems. 70, pp. 701 – 707. Procedia Computer Science.
Zailani, S., Govindan, K., Iranmanesh, M., & Shaharudin, M. (2015). Green Innovation Adoption in Automotive Supply Chain: The Malaysian case. Journal of Clean Production, 108(10), 1115–112.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
