How Green is India, Inc?

• Awareness levels of green IT high, implementation still low
• Reducing cost primary motivator, environment follows next
• Desktop power management takes precedence over data center and server
  management
• Virtualization high on priority but not really perceived to be green
• PSUs as focused on green IT as the private sector and MNCs
• Little or no work on ewaste management; low awareness on the criticality
  of the issue
• High cost and low availability of green products are the biggest
  inhibitors for companies

Greener business, healthier bottomline was the theme for the first ever
green IT event organized by Dataquest toward the end of 2007. The event was
hosted in the three cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore keeping in mind the
rising interest levels on green, and to promote a discussion on it. During a
panel discussion on Energy Management Issue in one of the cities, there was
much debate and discussion on green not from the esteemed panelists sitting on
board but from the delegates that had turned up in large numbers. One of the
biggest grouse of the innumerable CIOs present was that there was not much
literature or discussion on green from a holistic point of view. We do get to
read on green, but it usually comes with a lot of hard sell, was a common
refrain.

Keeping in mind the wishes of the enterprise community and the need of the
hour, Dataquest decided to come out with a regular feature on green within the
magazine itself, that was to be published every alternative issue. Though green
features were regularly carried within the magazine like most others, it was for
the first time anyone had specifically set aside a whole section for green
coverage.

Awareness levels seem to be quite high among India Inc. The most heartening aspect has been the awareness levels of the PSUs, which is just marginally lower than the MNCs. Proving that when it comes to technology, especially so far for Green, PSUs are no laggards

In the year gone by, month after month, Dataquest touched upon numerous
issues that required immediate or long-term attention, be it green electronics,
green buildings, carbon emissions, green data centers, green software, renewable
energy, et al. For the first time, there was substantial green coverage from a
domestic perspective, and not just reprinting of reports and features from
foreign magazines. Dataquest had indeed taken the lead in terms of engaging the
Indian enterprise community on the green agenda.

Thus, it was only fitting that the first ever comprehensive survey on green
readiness was conducted under the aegis of Dataquest itself. After almost a year
of constant coverage, numerous outreach events, the time was ripe to know the
level of greenliness among Indian enterprises. Over a period of few months, a
survey was conducted by a professional agency, spanning across cities. The
mandate given out was simple and terse: discovering the ground scenario on
green.

The DQ Green Survey, for the first time, maps the level of awareness levels
of Indian enterprises on green IT, their perceptions, the challenges faced and
the stage of implantation. This survey gives a complete snapshot of how green
India Inc is or is turning into.

India Inc Wakes up to Green IT

Everything starts with hype, is what any analyst will tell you. For a
technology or trend to take shape, the first stage is to find takers for it. It
can only happen when there is mass interest for it. Green IT is a buzzword in
the West and has already progressed beyond the hype stage, as is evident from
the kind of work and research that is happening on that front. Thus, to know
whether green IT will find its ground in India, one of the most basic aspects
and also the starting point of the survey was to check the awareness levels of
it in Indian enterprises. Over the past few quarters there have been a slew of
reports that have been released and advertising blitzkrieg done by vendors on
the issue of green IT, hence it was important to check the awareness levels.

The result was fairly encouraging with close to 69% of the respondents
admitting that they were aware of green IT. This is a heartening find, as it
proves that there is a high amount of interest on the issue. Not surprisingly,
the awareness levels were higher in MNCs with some 77% admitting to know about
the issue. But it is interesting to note the high awareness levels among PSUs,
some 76% of them said that they were aware of green IT. Another interesting
thing to note is that the awareness level was highest among companies with
annual revenues of Rs 50-100 crore, around 79%. Big companies, with annual
revenues of over Rs 500 crore, came next.

For long PSUs have been painted as slow and lethargic when it comes to technology uptake, slower to even understand the potential. But when it comes to green IT, PSUs have outscored all the rest in quite many parameters. Quite many large PSUs, over the years, had been voluntarily carrying out green initiatives like tree planting, etc, as part of their social commitment, so going green is no tough task for them.

Awareness levels seem to be quite high among India Inc. The most heartening aspect has been the awareness levels of the PSUs, which is just marginally lower than the MNCs. Proving that when it comes to technology, especially so far for Green, PSUs are no laggards

Thus the results are conclusive, the hype and hoopla around green IT seems to
be working. But that leads us to the next question: So what if awareness levels
are high, are there any takers? Indeed mere awareness is no surety of whether
the CIOs will be implementing green IT within their company.

With the costs of energy going through the roof, green IT is becoming a way to battle energy inflation. Indian enterprises are also becoming conscious of their role in society, evident from the high weightage for environment and corporate image.

Hence, as a corollary, we tested the perception of respondents toward green
ITdid they think it was hype, reality, necessity, or none of that? The results
again were fairly substantial, as a significant amount of people (around 65%)
felt that green IT was a reality and a necessity. Again, and rather
surprisingly, it was the PSUs that showed the most maturity on the issue, with
some 52% of them stating that green IT was a necessity. Of all the respondents,
some 8% debunked green IT as hype, and some 27% still seem to be undecided on
it.

That means that even though the awareness levels are fairly high, there is
still a lot of ambiguity around the issue of green IT. This chasm between
awareness and perception is the next big challenge in front of India Inc.
Vendors, media, analysts, will now need to talk of specific benefits rather than
merely talking of the mundane.

In fact when the companies were asked to rank the importance of green IT, as
most important, very important, important and little important. Most of them
chose very important, followed by an even split between most important and
important. This again underlines the above finding, that even when companies
are aware of the green issues, they are not sure how pertinent it is to them.

Its All About Money, Honey

Thanks to so much talk about the environment nowadays, there is a earnest
debate as to what is the driving factor behind the rising awareness levels for
issues like green IT. There are basically two schools of thoughts on this
matter. According to one, it the economics that is driving up the awareness and
also the adoption. The other plumbs for social responsibility as the primary
driver.

In a rapidly developing economy like India, environment and social
responsibility usually take a back seat to issues like growth and scale up. But,
with burgeoning growth and crumbling infrastructure, organizations have realised
that they need to achieve high productivity from the same or even lesser
resources. This has led to better utilization of technology, and this is also
evident from the high number of respondents. Some 78% claimed that reducing
costs is the biggest motivating factor for going green. It is obvious that with
the increasing costs of resources, most importantly power and real estate, the
CIO seems to have taken on some of the responsibilities of the CFO as well. And
this is the very area where Green IT scores, it is not merely a way to green but
a healthy one.

Yet again, on this issue as well, it is the PSUs that steal the limelight,
with some 83% claiming that reducing costs is the primary motivation. This is
quite interesting as for long PSUs have been painted as jaded and opulent
enterprises, where monetary concerns are the last thing on the mind of the CIO.
That is certainly not the case anymore. Meanwhile the MNCs also seemed to be
keen on green IT forcreating an environment-friendly workplace, which some 41%
described as a big motivator, though this was the lowest concern for the PSUs.

Power management software has still not caught on in India, with close to 24% still having no plans or inclination to do so. It could also be that software-based solutions have not really been promoted in India, as they should be.

But even with the obsession to cut down on costs, the organizations have not
lost sight of their larger role. As environmental issues and corporate social
responsibility were the second and third motivating factors for green IT, with
compliance and corporate image being tied on the fourth place. Thus, it will be
a fallacy for someone to debunk environmental concerns, while there is little
doubt that even as money is the primary mover for green IT, organizations are no
less concerned about the environmental impact.

Perceptions on Green

Well, it was heartening to know that a vast majority of Indian enterprises,
both from the private sector and the public, were aware of the need to go green,
and attached fairly high importance to it. But, what exactly is green IT? Is it
putting new blade servers in the data center? Going in for virtualization? Or
configuring desktops to go into sleep mode once they are no more in use? To be
honest, there is no one single definition of green IT, it is more of a journey
than a destination, a journey that makes an organization more efficient and
agile.

Ignorance of the e-waste issue seems to be the biggest ailment that is afflicting Indian organizations. For instance, a lot of hardware vendors these days have a take-back policy, wherein they promise to recycle the waste at no or nominal costs. If the CIOs were to insist on the same before making purchases, the whole issue would be solved even before it cropped up. But due to lack of knowledge, there is not much push from the CIOs towards e-waste management and hence the problem is piling up for the future generations.

To know how exactly Indian enterprises perceive green IT, respondents were
asked to list down their beliefs, twice. In the first instance they were unaided
and in the second, they were shown a lists of steps and then asked to prioritize
them. Whenever someone is asked to list down a set of things in a prioritized
order, they often share whats there on the top of the mind. But when shown a
list of options, the mind starts to reason. Thus through these two-pronged
approaches, we were able to decipher what the respondents instinctively believed
to be green IT and what they reasoned to be green IT. The basic idea behind this
technique was to arrive at what really constituted as green at these
organizations.

On listing the top 5 perceptions from the two, one gets an interesting story.
Energy efficiency is at the top of the mind of organizations. When unaided, in
fact 3 of the top 5 perceptions relate to power management of PCs, the next two
things are to reduce server power and e-waste management.

According to estimates, air conditioners within the offices are the biggest cause for concern as they not only consume a lot of electricity but are also responsible for releasing of harmful green house gases. Sadly, HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) does not seem to merit much attention by Indian organizations, as close to 47% rate it negatively.

When the respondents were aided, ie, shown a list of steps that enable green
within an organization, almost suddenly data center gained prominence. This time
around 3 of the top 5 concerns were around data center. The top 2 were still
related to PC energy management.

This shows that at the top of the agenda for CIOs is energy efficiency, which
they are still grappling with it. The sudden emergence of data centers in the
aided list also points out that due to much publicity, it has gained prominence
among the community. Hence when the list was shown, it suddenly dawned upon them
that it was an important aspect. Nonetheless, virtualization still languished at
the bottom of the table, implying that not many enterprises associate
virtualization with green.

Another interesting finding is the differences in the way different segments,
namely organization types, perceive green IT. For instance, PSUs seemed to be
more concerned with data center, as reducing server power consumption and
upgradation of data center cooling was among the top three concerns. MNCs and
private companies seem to be more inclined toward power management at the user
end, as PC power management was the top priority. This could also be due to the
fact that most PSUs have larger IT infrastructure at the back-end, rather than
at the user level, while that is not the case with MNCs and private companies.

Implementation of Green

Next on the survey menu card was the actual implementation levels of green
IT within the organization. Respondents from across verticals were asked to list
down the steps taken by them to go green. Questions ranged from configuring
desktops to go to sleep mode to regular monitoring of carbon footprint. The
companies were asked to respond on a 5-point scale, ranging from we have
already implemented (high level) to dont really have any plans (low level).
The different questions in the survey were inter-related and grouped in a
certain way to discover at what level of green IT implementation was the
organization as of now.

Using statistical tools like factor and cluster analysis (Extraction Method:
Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser
Normalization), the responses were grouped under different headings starting
from the very basic steps of green IT, that is PC/aptop power management to
higher levels like e-waste/recycling, data center and server management, green
building initiatives, vendor management and employee initiatives. An analysis of
the different groupings provides an idea of the level of implementation and
preparedness.

Power management on the PC/laptop end is undoubtedly at the very basic of
green. Any implementation of green within the organization usually starts from
this end, as PCs are configured to go to sleep mode, or users are asked to
switch off desktops and monitors when they leave from work. The advanced steps
on the same front is to install power management software, and promotion of CFD
techniques for energy efficiency.

Ironically, Virtulization, which is not high on the list of green priorities for the CIOs, seems to be seeing a lot of action, with close to 60% having already implemented or planning to do so.

One look at the graphs reveals the complete story. Most of the companies have
either implemented or are in the process of implementing green steps. Over 60%
of the companies have configured desktops to go into sleep mode and around the
same number have asked the employees to turn off desktops and monitors at night.
There is a drastic dip in the numbers as we move up the scale, with lower number
of organizations having installed power management software at the user end and
much lesser talk of using CFD techniques.

Low budgets and costly products are the biggest bane for Green IT, the best way for companies to combat is to make a clear business case for investment. A positive RoI is hard to argue against

Within the group as well, there is not much difference in the way MNCs,
private limited companies or PSUs have undertaken power management steps. The
same is indicative that organizations are currently starting off on their green
journey, and in the near future at least there will be much awareness in terms
of power management at the user level, at least. Once that is in place,
companies will be able to move to the next level, that is, using CFD techniques
for energy mapping, etc.

Managing E-waste

One of the biggest issues plaguing India is that of management of e-waste.
Much of the problem arises from the fact that a lot of developed countries dump
their electronic waste in India, creating a bio-hazard. But that does not take
away the fact that India itself is now generating a lot of electronic waste.
Outdated PCs and peripherals are usually dumped at local junkyards, and new
machines are brought in.

On being queried on the issue, a lot many organizations mentioned that they
were in the process of going in for e-waste take-back agreement with IT vendors.
But the worrying fact is that close to 40% havent given the matter much thought
or dont have any plans to implement it. This negative figure rises as we move
further, with over 60% saying that they havent thought or just wont tie-up
with NGOs or e-waste companies for processing the waste. And in-house recycling
of hardware is also something that is not on the top of the agenda, with close
to 46% falling in the negative band.

The awareness for the need for green products seem to be increasing as over 50% of the companies stated that they prefer green products over cheap less-green ones. This could be an eye opener for the vendors who have been shy to sell their costly greenware in Indian markets

Ironically, or rather sadly, e-waste seems to be a rather mindset issue, as
there is not much difference in the way companies across the spectrum are
dealing with it. Though MNCs are marginally ahead when it comes to formulating a
take-back plan, they seem to be as loathe of tying up with NGOs for waste
management.

This is a worrying trend, as it indicates that not many organizations are
paying attention to the issue, especially when you consider it in the Indian
perspective. Also the fact that there are no rules and regulations relating to
the same might be another factor that plays a role in this context. Looking at
the scenario now, one is certain that outward looking companies, namely IT
service companies and BPOs, are the ones that seem to have woken up to the
issues, whereas domestic companies still seem to be ignorant of the same.
Hopefully, that will change once there is some legislation on that front in the
near future.

Data Center and Server Management

Data centers, as has been mentioned time and again in different features
carried in our magazine and other studies, are big guzzlers of power. A major
chunk of this power is spent on cooling the servers. Thus there are different
aspects of data center management that an organization can look into for greater
efficiency.

On looking at the results, there seems to be fair understanding and movement
on this front. Again this could be borne out of the result of the constant
bombardment of the same by hardware vendors that often tout their wares under
the green garb. Without doubt, much attention has been paid on this issue by
hardware vendors, and this could be the reason that it features prominently.

PSUs continue to maintain a clear lead when it comes to implementation of
technologies around data centers, in fact close to 48% have already virtualized
their servers, which is pretty high when compared to 29% of MNC firms and 20% of
private companies.

The Coming of Green Buildings

Buildings are one of the most dubious aspects of green, as they are passive
and hence dont seem to be pollutants, and yet, according to international
reports, account for close to 8% of global emissions. The glass dabbas (how RK
Pachauri refers to them) are much cause for concern as they require immense
cooling, thereby resulting in excess spending of energy on HVAC. Fortunately,
over the years there has been much progress on that front, thanks to all those
LEED rated buildings and complexes that are coming up across the length and
breadth of India.

At the base level, companies seem to have readily adopting CFL lamps over
incandescent bulbs, with over 70% saying that they have installed it already or
will be installing soon. Even data center power supply seems to have merited
significant traction as over 60% of companies have put in solutions or are in
the process of doing so.

Nonetheless, while there is a lot of talk around going carbon neutral or even
climate neutral, this is certainly not on the immediate horizon of Indian
companies, as over 60% havent given much thought or wont be doing anything
about it. Still, as we move forward as a nation and inevitably have to take
carbon emission caps, etc, the numbers will rise. And surely the 37% that are
already monitoring the carbon footprint or are in the process of doing so, will
inspire others.

Vendor Issues

In advanced countries, a lot of premium is attached to green products, but
that is certainly not the case in India yet. Much of the decisions on purchase
of equipment still seem to be driven by the cost factor. And as many as 50% of
the organizations said they would not be giving any premiums to green product
suppliers. This is also evident from the fact that over 70% of the respondents
mentioned cost as the biggest challenge in sourcing green products.

It is the PSUs that for the first time seem to be dragging their feet on this
issue and dont seem to have woken up to the new reality, with over 56% listing
in the negative band. The big reason could be the fact that much of the
contracts are still awarded in the archaic tendering method, that favors the
lowest bidder. Hopefully, since a lot of the PSUs are also looking to earn money
through the means of CDM, etc, they would have to pay attention to this aspect
as well.

One of the indicators of the change is the %age of budgetary allocation for
green IT, with close to 70% mentioning that they are allocating over 5% of their
IT budgets to make green IT related purchases.

Engaging the Employee

Engaging the employee is one of the most important aspects of growing green,
as unless the employee is not motivated or aware of his responsibilities not
much change can take place. While, traditionally, Indian enterprises have been
rather staid in engaging the employees on such issues, be it green or even CSR.
But the trend seems to be changing, as quite a few of the companies admit to be
paying attention to the need to engage the employees.

One of the best ways to engage the employee is to impress the need to go green, for instance, the Google campus in San Francisco has numerous features that highlight the need to go green. There seems to be similar beginnings in India as well. Infosys is doing the same at its numerous campuses (read the case study).

Internationally, green is being merged into the CSR objective, as companies
of the likes of Google, Dell, GM, Microsoft and others talking about the
ecological impact of their operations. Indian firms have been traditionally shy
of CSR, more akin to talk about corporate philanthropy, but over 40% of the
companies are indeed looking at green from the CSR perspective, maybe taking
their cue from international firms.

Other things Green

Beyond all these, there are a lot of things and aspects that fall under the
green ambit. There are a host of issues that are responsible for a company to go
green, one of the biggest trend noticed in India is that green still usually
comes from the top. The firms and companies that are adopting green in a major
ways are doing so at the behest of the passionate head honcho, one of the most
obvious example is that of Wipro and Infosys. Even though TCS is the largest IT
firm in India, it hasnt really adopted green like the other two, simply because
the mandate needs to come from the top. That is also the case with quite many
firms in Indiaunless it comes from the top not much happens.

Another heartening fact is that there is increasing levels of awareness about
green standards within the corporate sector. As many of the companies are
obsessed with cutting costs, Energy Star seems to be the most popular ones, but
there is still a long way to go as close to a quarter of the correspondents
stated that they were unaware of any of the green standards.

In Conclusion

It does not take a prophet to know that the road ahead is indeed green.
Through choice or compulsion, Indian Inc will have to adopt green measures in
the years to come. The good news is that as we move ahead due to varying
factors, be it cost, corporate image or even environmental concerns, quite many
companies are waking up to the need to green.

Finally, any major feat cannot be accomplished in isolation. Similarly, it is
our scores of readers, to whom we are indebted for guiding and appreciating the
green cudgel picked up by us. At the risk of sounding pompous, 67% of the
respondents of this survey (that by the way represent the whos who of India
Inc) stated that they liked the green coverage in the magazine and found it
worthwhile. That is really a big pat on our back. Fortuitously, the year 2008,
in which we keenly started focusing on green, was designated the International
year of Planet Earth. And now, as we move into 2009, lets paint it green and
dub it the Year of Green IT. Heres wishing you a prosperous green year ahead!

Shashwat DC

shashwatc@cybermedia.co.in