Towards Green IT Organisations: A Framework for Energy Consumption and Reduction.

Though the IT industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in many countries over the past years, its relationship with the natural environment has not been given much consideration. This growing industry has as main negative impact on the environment, climate change in the form of global warming, caused by the emissions of carbon in the air. Green IT relates Information Technology and the environment by promoting studies, development of techniques for improving energy efficiency and reducing waste in the full life cycle of computing in the IT. This paper discusses the effects of the growing IT industry on the environment along with a review of existing work in Green IT. A conceptual framework for energy consumption and reduction using system dynamics modelling is also proposed which links the different locations within an IT organisation where most of the energy consumption takes place and a case-study is given that illustrates the application of the conceptual framework in a small in-house software development company consisting of ten employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]