SustainableIT.org releases first-ever standards to measure IT impact on sustainability

Standards will measure the environmental impact of building, running and managing IT operations, including cloud infrastructure.

When SustainableIT.org launched in March 2022, one of the stated goals of its leadership team was create a set of standardized metrics and definitions that organisations of all kinds could use to quantify the environmental impact of their IT operations.

Today, the non-profit announces SustainableIT Environmental Standards 1.0 - a set of 50 essential metrics and definitions for energy consumption, emissions, waste, and sourcing. These standards, compatible with those issued by GRI, SASB and TCFD will help organizations consistently and accurately gauge the environmental impact of their technology infrastructure and ultimately help them to reduce that impact via meaningful targets and trackable progress.

These new standards include two spheres of impact. The first is the direct impact of IT operations, and the second is the impact of an organisations use of technology. Speaking exclusively to Computing, Rick Pastore, Research Principal at SustainableIT explains the subtle differences between these two spheres:

"Around 60% of these metrics focused on the CIOs domain; the things they can they have control over. The other 40% or so is what technology can do for sustainability across the enterprise such as water usage, or having a paperless enterprise, which we've been talking about for decades! A CIO can't control paper, but they can put in document management systems which are much more user friendly."

Remote and hybrid working would also fall into this category. Is the reduction in carbon footprint from reduced commuting offset by the increased home energy use from individual employees? Are you still heating empty office space? Is there an opportunity to consolidate?

Cloud Control

Of course, one of the first challenges facing organisations trying to quantify the impact of their infrastructure is that at least some of is likely to be in the cloud, and probably many clouds. Pastore explained that, presently, cloud vendors are leading their customers in terms of sustainability policy, but that a key aim of these metrics is to give the customer greater leverage to negotiate.

"Companies have the ability to put requirements into their cloud contracts for sustainability. But what are they going to require? Right now they're being pretty reactive to the vendors. The vendors set out their sustainability policies but the data they provide is aggregate which makes it difficult to extract meaning from.

"CIOs with multi-cloud portfolios question why they should have to get different numbers in different formats from all of their providers. That's one of the biggest challenges. We've got a set of vendor criteria and what we're hoping is that CIOs who have a lot of buying power say, ‘this is what we want, this is how we want these numbers and we want them quarterly and we want to we want to be alerted when there's a major change.'

"This set of standards can unify what CIOs are asking for and expecting from the vendor community and they can come to the table with a list. It might be in the form of GHG intensity data, it might be whether data centre is following the code of conduct for European data centres etc. It gives CIOs the opportunity to hold vendors to a consistent framework and be able to measure infrastructure impact."

CIOs are central to sustainability

The work of SustainableIT highlights the centrality of technology to efforts to make business more sustainable. Jedidiah Yueh, Founding Director of SustainableIT.org and Delphix Founder and CEO commented:

"We are still early in a major digital transformation cycle, where more and more business processes will be driven by IT. The continued rapid adoption of technology comes at an increasing cost to the environment and cannot go unchecked. These standards will help IT leaders contain the environmental cost of IT, while using technology to drive more sustainable businesses and industries."

Rick Pastore explains further why the CIO should be at the heart of sustainability initiatives.

"The idea that you can create a digital operating model for your business but do sustainability separately is definitely short sighted. One of the reasons CIOs can step up and lead these things is precisely because they have digital transformation experience. CIOs ae used to driving change and funding stuff internally and making a business case for a proper budget. CIOs already know how to do this so they should be front and centre and part of the leadership team on sustainability."

SustainableIT Environmental Standards 1.0 is the first foundational tool in the SustainableIT.org integrated portfolio of programs and resources. The organization is currently developing social and governance standards. Related resources will include self-assessments, team education, tailored workshops, and communities of practice, which will drive sustainability progress and public awareness.

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