Sustainability management is no different from any other type of operational or risk management. What is required is a reliable means of collecting lots and lots of data, preferably in real-time, constantly monitoring that data, reporting on it and using the information the data provides to manage down your impacts and risks. Much of modern day risk management is supported by technology (think ERM and ERP systems) in order to effectively manage a business’ operations. You would be hard-pressed to find a large business without an ERP system, so it seems logical for those same large businesses to use I.T. to manage their sustainability impacts. There is near universal agreement that I.T. has a role to play in helping organisations to measure, monitor, report, and manage their sustainability impacts and to enable the rest of the business to operate more sustainably. However, a poll around the table suggested that many organisations, including very large ones, still rely on spreadsheets and manual gathering and reporting to manage their environmental impacts. In other words, there was a gap between intention and action.

Further discussion suggested that many organisations saw this as the beginning of what will be a long journey in the area of sustainability measurement, monitoring, management and reporting, and as such, a high-level snapshot of their major, obvious environmental impacts (e.g. lighting) is sufficient at this stage. But, it was also acknowledged that as time passes and environmental and other related legislation such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme strengthens, so will business’ need for a finer, more accurate and deeper understanding of their environmental impacts. It is then that more organisations will increasing turn to I.T. to help support environmental management.

The table discussion ended with the following points about the role of I.T. in environmental management.

1.       The move to a more sustainable business and economy will not happen without technology enablement

 

2.       However, there are so many technology solutions on the market that it is currently very difficult for businesses to pinpoint which ones are fit for purpose. Therefore, businesses need help to identify appropriate carbon management software. To this end, the Carbon Trust Enterprises (the consulting arm of the Carbon Trust) will launch a brand endorsement mark in the summer which will go some way in helping to solve this problem

 

3.       Environmental management will open up new markets for I.T. and software companies. However, uptake of the solutions could be accelerated if government were to take a stronger role in mandating behaviours

 

4.       I.T. should be able to lower the cost of change for a business, so if organisation’s complete a cost-benefit analysis, the business case for investment in I.T. for environmental management should be strong

 

5.       I.T. is an integral enabler but where organisations are having difficulty making the business case for large investments in I.T. for environmental management, focus on incremental step-by-step investments in key areas (such as server power management) should provide a near immediate cost saving

 

6.       In cases where x & y don’t add up, some see a market failure and a need for open source initiatives to help smaller businesses manage their environmental impacts.