Digital Footprint & IT
IT Projects Methodology
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IT Projects Methodology

Existing software engineering models do not pay much attention to green computing that focuses on the effective use of natural resources. However, making information systems greener is possible through different steps of projects: design, development per se, installation phase...

On top of that, more and more models are being discussed and tested: green holistic methodologies, emergence of EI (environmental informatics) or Science Based Targets (SBT) methodology.

Even if some models are being thought out, it is quite hard to enforce global green methodologies because there is no silver bullet yet. Before implementing any further big holistic methodologies, the section here should help you deploy quick-wins.

Deploy Sustainable Design Best Practices
Cost
LOW
Cost
MEDIUM
Cost
HIGH
EFFORT
low
EFFORT
medium
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low
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Any IT project is made of design steps. Here are some tips to create quick wins:

  • Audit your current website with Website Carbon for a fast overview of your website digital footprint
  • Audit your web flow and delete web pages that users never read
  • Reduce your website weight:
    - remove what is not necessary (images, videos, texts...)
    - choose fonts that are already used on most computers (thus not using more engine power to be uploaded)
    - curb images / videos size and quality
    - design with a reduced number of colors and on degraded level on those colors
  • Have optimized architectures for your softwares in order to save energy usage and server computing power

If you develop your softwares / websites yourself, make sure you follow these easy steps below to follow a sustainable mindset:

  • When designing, think Mobile first and consider what content and which transactions are most essential for a mobile experience. Keep in mind to make the interface lighter and go for UI/UX optimization. In doing so, you will develop less pages, so loading and energy used will be less. Do the same for photo sizing and graphics as mobile experience will demand less weighted images, your overall website pages will use less bandwidth.
  • Prefer dithered images at best
  • Make sure your website is fast to load (less than 3s.)
  • Improve Findability & maximize user paths to find most useful information. The less pages you browse on your website, the less server requests are needed and thus the less carbon footprint it will have.
  • Curb the number of features and be straightforward, relief technical debt by targeting must-have / high value features and cut the rest if you can
  • Get your SEO/SEM right to save time for users

If you wish to go deeper, ask a specialist to help you implement sustainable design Best Practices on your website.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

- Audit your current website with Website Carbon for a fast overview of your website digital footprint

‍- Discover Ecometer rules for a Sustainable Design of your website

- More tips on sustainable web design

Suppliers that provide solutions:
Digital transformation & Agility consultancy
Palo IT

PALO IT is an international consultancy specialised in Human-Centered Design, Agile Software Development and in the Transformation of forward-thinking companies.

They are a certified B Corporation, which means they harness the power of innovation and technology for positive social impact.

Digital transformation agency
Niji

Niji is an international digital agency that focuses on helping businesses make a success of the digital transformation.

They provide a large range of services like e-retailers and public services apps - to make the all-important switch to digital technologies in support of their strategies, multi-channel distribution and internal operations. Niji takes place in every stage of the value chain, delivering digital strategy, engineering and technology consulting services, alongside a service design and software development offering.

Especially, Niji provides methodologies, audits and websites to turn solutions greener and more sustainable.

Web development & Data science campus
lewagon

LeWagon is a coding bootcamp deployed in many countries in the world.

They provide coding lessons (both online and offline) and enable businesses to deliver bespoke solutions thanks to their in-house developers.

LeWagon teams push forward for greener practices in design and coding to make energy-efficient solutions go live.

Deploy Sustainable Development Best Practices
Cost
LOW
Cost
MEDIUM
Cost
HIGH
EFFORT
low
EFFORT
medium
EFFORT
HIGH
IMPACT
low
IMPACT
MEDIUM
IMPACT
HIGH

Developing a greener software relies on several focuses. There is no perfect methodology at the moment, but still, you can start following these steps:

- Sustainability - This means the software has to be created reliable, lifelong and efficient to fulfill the users' needs it is made for and, if possible, trying to aim at sustainable goals.

- Frugality - Do not develop complex architectures for simple projects. Also build reliable structures if the solution is made to last and grow. It takes more time to build things twice rather than building one structure in the first place. Simplify your code as much as possible. Always design your solution the best way to reduce your carbon footprint.

- Methodology revamp - Waterfall and Agile methodologies are the most popular at the moment. Waterfall model is definitely very energy consuming (much work can be deployed for nothing, for instance), and Agile methodologies are flexible but can create extra work or additional tasks that could be merged. The solution is simple: to save time and energy, work and design your projects before going through. It will save steps and help all stakeholders see your vision.

- Testing optimization - Testing is practically one of the longest steps in software development. To save time and energy, prefer automated tests solution for large scales phases and use human brains for simple testing before using an entire infrastructure!

- Smart monitoring - Deploy easy monitoring solutions or track your energy consumption yourself to make sure the software you maintain is on track.

By applying all these tips, you will also save money!

If you do not have time or resources to do this yourself (we know, it takes a lot of time!), go for software development agencies. You have the choice between:

  • Eco-design oriented software agencies
  • Agencies with teams locally-based (always better because supposedly, local agencies ensure better project management and resource saving by coordination)

~ 1/2

of software functions requested by users are NEVER used
(Isit-Academy.org)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Suppliers that provide solutions:
Digital transformation & Agility consultancy
Palo IT

PALO IT is an international consultancy specialised in Human-Centered Design, Agile Software Development and in the Transformation of forward-thinking companies.

They are a certified B Corporation, which means they harness the power of innovation and technology for positive social impact.

Web development & Data science campus
lewagon

LeWagon is a coding bootcamp deployed in many countries in the world.

They provide coding lessons (both online and offline) and enable businesses to deliver bespoke solutions thanks to their in-house developers.

LeWagon teams push forward for greener practices in design and coding to make energy-efficient solutions go live.

Look for existing business cases & softwares
Cost
LOW
Cost
MEDIUM
Cost
HIGH
EFFORT
low
EFFORT
medium
EFFORT
HIGH
IMPACT
low
IMPACT
MEDIUM
IMPACT
HIGH

Before developing a new solution for your HR department or your faster-than-light traders, find out if you could merge different business cases together? Developing a new solution will need time, energy, money.

Merging business cases within the same solution may reduce your carbon footprint. To make sure you can (or cannot!) merge business cases, follow these easy steps:

  • Map the ecosystem for the business case: businesses, teams involved, timelines, availability of IT infrastructures, teams...
  • Talk with your colleagues and IT teams to see if there is a solution that already exists and can fulfill your needs (most of the time, it actually does)
  • Engage business lines and analysts to make sure their need is real, and understand the priority of such development
  • If the need is real, think about existing solutions your company has and engage decision makers
  • Make sure existing solutions are stable and robust enough to support new features of your business cases

Buying an existing software is of course more sustainable than creating a new software. You need sometimes to adapt your own process to fit it. In addition to the sustainable benefits, buying an existing software is quite cheaper because it has been developed and upgraded for several customers.

Still, if you have to develop a new solution...follow our other recommendations and browse our website!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Suppliers that provide solutions:
Train your team on Green IT
Cost
LOW
Cost
MEDIUM
Cost
HIGH
EFFORT
low
EFFORT
medium
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HIGH
IMPACT
low
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HIGH

Train your IT teams on the digital world footprint and impact, talk with them about digital sobriety, eco-responsibility design, development of best practices mentioned in our digital Footprint & IT part and also in other sections of the website, including but not limited to Paper & Printing Best Practices , how to increase lifespan of IT equipments (and why)....

If you are not aware of the problems, you cannot resolve them!

Once they understand the problem, your IT team will eventually question their needs and habits. They will become great supporters and facilitators when conducting digital footprint audits, action plans implementation and monitoring.

Sustainable IT collage workshops can be perfect to kick-off sustainable actions! Liaise with us for more information.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Suppliers that provide solutions:
Use AI & IoT with frugality and for upscale projects
Cost
LOW
Cost
MEDIUM
Cost
HIGH
EFFORT
low
EFFORT
medium
EFFORT
HIGH
IMPACT
low
IMPACT
MEDIUM
IMPACT
HIGH

For the hardware they need and the data traffic they generate, AI and IoT are definitely power hungry. On top of that, some of business cases that are supposed to enforce greener processes deliberately boosted the rebound effect. As a reminder, note that rebound effect stands the reduction in expected gains from new technologies that increase the efficiency of resource use for other reasons. For instance, working from home seems eco-friendly but if you spend the day turning the A/C on, you will end up using more energy than if you merely go to the office. As a consequence, new habits can lead to offset the beneficial effects of the new technology or any other measures taken, if these new habits are not sustainable.

AI and IoT can also bring up good news if they are used in a responsible way, to green up existing processes and hardware. Based on an Intel study delivered in 2018, 74% of the top 200 decision makers in businesses agreed that AI would help them enable solutions for a more sustainable world. So, who is right?

Actually, the question is not that easy to settle...

Even if no real study was delivered this way, it is quite easy to understand that AI and IoT, if not developed properly for green purposes is the opposite of sustainability.

It requires specific hardware (that need high performance and up-to-date versions) and the infrastructure they need (network, back-end, servers...) must be changed often. Also, the competitive aspect of such technologies - companies must show and deploy the best projects to ensure they are better than competitors -  require companies to work on new processes and devices all the time. This indirect impact should not be underestimated, some tech companies (and their AI suppliers of course) spend time, energy and money to develop all kinds of new projects.

Nevertheless, seeing things under that only point of view is very restrictive.

It would take days, weeks to draw an exhaustive list of all green AI business cases. So, instead of giving such a list, let's just think out some wide guidelines to deploy AI for a better world:

  • Improving energy consumption efficiency
  • Using IoT and AI to reduce e-waste
  • Using IoT and AI to reduce food waste
  • Deploying IoT and AI for agricultural projects based on sustainability or any species protection
  • Using IoT and AI for a better environment, cleaner air or water preservation
  • Enforcing safer solutions
  • Helping to develop new hardware that are more efficient (especially semi-conductors)

All these guidelines up there were deployed for recent business cases. If you wish to know more, just ask us!

74%

of top 200 decision business makers agreed that AI would help them enable solutions for a more sustainable world.
(Intel)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Suppliers that provide solutions:
Use blockchain with frugality
Cost
LOW
Cost
MEDIUM
Cost
HIGH
EFFORT
low
EFFORT
medium
EFFORT
HIGH
IMPACT
low
IMPACT
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HIGH

Over the past years, blockchain has been deployed tremendously in many fields of activities: logistics, banking, retail...
Most large enterprises decided to go forth and use its powerful possibilities to ensure Smart contracts, safe processing and transactions or speculation. Among those large enterprises, FedEx, IBM, Siemens, HSBC proved themselves proficient and quite flexible regarding all possible business cases regarding blockchain technologies.

However, behind this huge potential lie some cons that must be spoken out loud. If blockchain is not necessarily bad for environment, companies should think twice before using it and keep it for large scale operations. Even so, for such usages, blockchain should remain used for few business cases because of its possible negative impact on environment. Here are some explanations about how blockchain can collide with environmental incentives:

- Blockchain does require much electricity. Outspoken critics point at cryptocurrencies actually. Why? Because they make the core of blockchain technology and "mining" such currencies involves huge amount of servers to mine (and "dig" cryptocurrencies") and maintain the system. On the one hand, mining needs computing power to deliver the proof of work (and thus vast amount of electricity), on the other hand, maintaining the system safe also needs massive energy. About 99% of the environmental impact come from the use of the mining equipment, with minimal contributions from production and recycling.

- Most of servers used for blockchain rely on fossil fuels. The location of the miners have the largest impact on the environment, with areas that use mostly fossil fuels for electricity, such as Inner Mongolia, China, contributing more to the carbon footprint than regions using renewable resources, such as Sichuan, China.

However, blockchain is being used more and more for environmental projects and purposes. There is a silver lining, especially if cryptocurrencies are being set apart from other blockchain usecases:

  • The so-called proof of work is being rethought these days, in order to promote a greener mindset (proof of stake for instance). It is important to remind that blockchain is also concerned about socially responsible projects, that is in the center of this proof of stake reform.
  • Many environmental projects managed to emerge thanks to blockchain. For energy saving and eco-friendly businesses, have a look at:      
      - Brooklyn Microgrids    
      - PowerLedger      
      - PowerPeers
  • Smart contracts to ensure sustainable legal structures for SME and bigger enterprises
  • More and more socially sustainable models are pushed by blocakchain protagonists like Primavera de Filippi

To sum it up, it is quite hard to quantify the impact of blockchain on the environment. Depending on its usage, it can provide amazing breakthroughs or demonstrate a significant harmful impact on our planet.

This is why it should be used with frugality for best purposes in order to save energy consumption in the end.

x500,000

times more energy used by a Bitcoin transaction compared with a standard Visa transaction.
(ekoenergy)

31.3 TWH

and 17.3 megatons of carbon dioxide are the Bitcoin energy consumption estimates as of 2018.
(Science Daily)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Disruptive Technologies for Environment and Health Research:
- An Overview of Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Internet of Things

‍Know more about bitcoin environmental impact:
- from digiconomist.net
- from sciencedaily.com

Suppliers that provide solutions:
Buddies - Experience sharing

The « green journey » may feel overwhelming sometimes, but you are not alone.

Our Buddies have tried, succeeded, failed to implement change in their companies. They share their experience so you can learn, take shortcuts, get inspired and ask questions.

Everybody can become a Buddy and give back to the community; if you are keen, get in touch with us.

Thibaut Meurgue
Entrepreneur & It Sustainability Consultant, Co-founder – The Transmutation Principle, Climate Fresk Singapore Coordinator

I am Thibaut, French bald since 26 & bold since forever! Right now, I am a 1st time entrepreneur in the making. 

I come from an IT & software agency background so deeply into B2B and old-fashioned processes. I came to realize that sustainability cannot be only about consumers and half-measures. I also realized IT Sustainability was much underrated and not understood by most companies. It came quite as a surprise for me since I always considered IT Sustainability as one of the best ways to merge both ROI & Sustainability to make the latter sound acceptable, actionable, and realistic. Having seen that, I wanted to make a change in my own way. 

My dedication came from the desire to be able to look my future kids in the eye and tell them that I tried to make the world a better place. 

I am also drawn to uncommon & less popular causes, which is why e-waste caught my attention. While it’s not as “buzzy” as plastic waste or consumer recycling, it has the potential to have a greater impact, especially in Asia.

Vincent Desclaux
Managing Director - Palo IT

I have been working in Asia for the past 12 years (Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore since 2014) within the digital and technology space.

I have founded and run several companies in different sectors such as IT Consulting, Education, and the F&B business.

I am passionate about how to use technology as a force for good.

Radhika Chavan
Co-Founder - Tulya

Radhika is the Co-founder of Tulyā, A Sustainability Management Accounting (SMA) Services company. Her work includes measurement and understanding of the impact environmental and social factors will have on the value creation for SMEs. She develops tailored tools and practices that integrate material topics (ESG & Business) with accounting statements line items to demonstrate financial impact of action vs inaction.

She has worked with Lehman Brothers, Barclays and IT services companies before starting her entrepreneurial journey in sustainability.

She is a graduate in Chemical Engineering and has been certified in SASB , PMP, CSM &  Design Thinking-MIT.

Li Seng Heng
Founder - Green Nudge, Green Collar

Li Seng is the founder of Green Nudge, a social enterprise that supports businesses and communities to achieve positive environmental impact through activities such as coastal cleanups and workshops, outreach talks and sustainability consulting. By raising awareness and co-creating call-to-actions with various stakeholders on sustainability efforts, Green Nudge aims to create a normative shift in the way we create and deal with waste to achieve a low carbon, zero waste future for Singapore.

Li Seng’s previous experience in the public sector in the central bank of Singapore dealing with financial regulations, combined with his current roles in the community and social enterprise sector reinforced his belief that effective public policies need to be supported by ground-up actions and engagement. Playing an interfacing role within the tri-sector, Li Seng is able to provide sectoral knowledge through a system thinking lens to make informed decisions and strategies. He is happy to discuss disposables, sustainability of events, public education, and is familiar with corporate social responsibility and community / youth engagement.