Green Tech: IT and Environmental Sustainability

Earlier last month, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) released a major report on the physical science bases of climate change. This report builds upon previous works from 2012 and 2019, adding new evidence from climate science.

This includes the current state of our planet’s climate and the influence humans have made to this change. The report highlights key areas backed by concrete evidence: current state of the climate; possible climate futures; climate information for risk assessment and regional adaption; and, limiting future climate change.

Want more tech news? Subscribe to ComputingEdge Newsletter Today!

Backed by concrete evidence, IPPC’s report concludes, for the first time, that humans are unequivocally responsible for global warming. It also shows that it is still not too late for the population of our planet to take drastic action. The findings and recommendations of this report are currently being discussed in scientific media, and are drawing the attention of technology professionals, climate scientists, business and industry, and global governments.

Over a decade ago, IEEE Computer Society introduced the idea of Green IT its article titled, "Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices” in IEEE CS publication IT Professional, calling out to computing professions in their responsibility to adopt a holistic approach to greening IT to create a more sustaining environment. This article defined the scope, dimensions, and approaches to Green IT, and created awareness to foster further work in this field. 

We continue to drive the conversation around sustainability and IT. Here are a few of our favorite articles and publications furthering the field of Green IT.

• Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices
• An Empirical Study of Practitioners' Perspectives on Green Software Engineering
• Energy-Source-Aware Cost Optimization for Green Cellular Networks with Strong Stability
• Towards Green Business Process Management: Concept and Implementation of an Artifact to Reduce the Energy Consumption of Business Processes
• Energy-Interference-free Debugger: Debugging Green Energy
• Design and Operational Analysis of a Green Data Center
• Green IT and Green Software