human activity has released more than 2 trillion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere since the start of the First Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s.
(Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030, 2020)
Going green is major undertaking for established enterprises. Operations have been in motion for decades without a concern for environmental impact, so how do you begin to have a positive footprint? It starts with viewing sustainability as a strategic issue. Focusing on reducing the risk that affects how, where and with whom you do business. Understanding what business model you and yours partners will follow and how much value will be generated. The core needs are to:
- Position sustainable solutions to mitigate the operational costs, and reputational and strategic business risks.
- Identify how to respond to customer requests for environmental performance, life cycle data, and emerging product carbon footprint standards.
- Take thought leadership in developing sustainable business solutions that enable business models technology architectures.
- Advance from appealing to early innovators to becoming fully engaged with early mainstream adopters.
Enterprise Architecture (EA) can help leaders get to those core needs. Taking a new, green lens on your state analysis, practitioners can establish viewpoints for an integrated and strategic approach to sustainability. Generating a better understanding of the corporate culture and benefits that sustainability can offer individual lines of business. Specifically, leveraging EA to identify why, how and where within the organization you should engage to effect improved sustainability performance. For instance, understanding the carbon footprint your IT infrastructure has and what solutions are viable to migrate into energy efficient implementations. Project Natick is an innovative example of this, moving data centers underwater to leverage natural resources for computing needs while also providing new customer value with closer data origins.
Green EA is global effort, many public organizations have established standards to help enterprise efforts. It is prudent for EA practitioners to consider these in their governance models and monitor the progress and implementation with solutions to understand the potential impact on your business and supply chain.
References:
- Tratz-Ryan, B. Mingay, S. & Fairchok, S. (2013). Agenda Overview for Green IT and Sustainability. Gartner.
- Microsoft will be carbon negative by 2030. (2020). https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2020/01/16/microsoft-will-be-carbon-negative-by-2030/
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