How green is my vendor?

Probably not very

Environmental issues are becoming a big concern for those involved in managing IT and communications. You can tell this because just about every other supplier is talking up their green credentials.

Often they have only reduced their power consumption by a fraction of a megawatt, run an electric shuttle bus to their out of town business park location, or have just switched to "low energy" drinks in their staff cafeteria, but it's presented as being green.

It might make good marketing sense for vendors to make every effort to boost their green credentials, but is it really making a difference to customers, the vendors, or perhaps more importantly, the environment?

There are of course many green issues that might have an influence on the IT department, some directly affecting budgets, others involving relationships with other parts of the business.

The amount of power and cooling needed to run computers is often a first thought, then the chemicals and paper consumed by high speed laser printers and the legal requirement to re-cycle old desktops, laptops, and mobile phones (sometimes via the junior members of the departments). Marketing and personnel departments in many companies are starting to ask "how green can we say we are?"

While vendors are keen to tout how they might help slap a little spot of green paint, this generally only addresses one or two environmental issues and does not take a sufficiently broad view. The wider environmental challenge is about more than reducing power usage in one area, and has to encompass commercial impacts on the environment across the organisation, rather than just simplistic green ROI calculations.

It also needs to take into account the entire supply chain from component vendor to end of life, especially considering the legislative directives around waste and hazardous substances (WEEE and RoHS), and whether resources being used are sustainable or not.

These legal pressures will only increase as governments attempt to tackle the green issues further. So, for businesses of all types it is an organisational "lifestyle" change that has to be applied in a commercially sustainable business context.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/03/26/green_vendors/