Wasn’t it cool seeing our children last week talking about Earth Hour and doing projects in their schools about how everyone can help create better environment. Both my daughters were waiting whole day and watching the time to turn off the lights at 8.30pm on Saturday March 28th to participate along side the rest of the world to observe Earth Hour. Seems like everyone now know their individual roles they need to play to conserve energy and save our environment.
But when we talk about environment in terms of Green IT we know that we are talking about sustainable and viable IT and we recognize the fact that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) exhaust most of the power and energy resources. Internet search on saving power and energy on ICT infrastructure generates thousands of links on tips to reduce your energy bills to saving costs on efficient power management to having LEED certified data centers to turning off computers when not in use.
Besides considering these energy and cost saving strategies internally, companies are reaching out to their customers to get them involved in their going green endeavours. For example, some telecom companies in Australia are charging their customers for paper invoice/statements. Hmmm…not fair! Saving environment at the expense of your customers’ money is like doing something positive with negative approach … does it make sense? Efforts to save environment result in time and cost savings to the companies after all. Yes, it is understandable to switch from paper to online statements; companies need to invest resources in systems design, development monitoring and maintenance. A lot of cost is also associated with technology upgrades to allow online secure transactions plus a major overhaul is mandated in organizations’ marketing strategy and policy. But in the end, who’s going to benefit besides forests and trees and climate and environment?
On the other hand, Citizen Bank’s Green$ense Rewards Program makes more sense. Through Green$ense Rewards, 10 cents will be credited directly into the customers’ account for each electronic transaction they make.
A US based organization conEdison is among the few companies giving really GREEN incentives to their customers. conEdison donates $1 to a non-profit tree planting fund for each customer sign up for e-billing. An Australian company Computershare with operations world wide seems extremely focused on making a difference on climate change with its eTree initiative. Computershare has partnered with local tree planting organizations in Australia, Canada, USA and UK to plant a tree on behalf of investors and shareholders who opt for receiving their communications via email or online.
Does anyone know of any other companies making Green IT even greener by giving Green Incentives to their customers like conEdison and Computershare?
