What Were the Various Green Initiatives Undertaken by Wipro - Essay Example

Case Study: Green I.T. at Wipro What were the various green initiatives undertaken by Wipro? Wipro started its green journey when it took the initiative through consolidation and visualisation to reduce down the power consumption in its own data centre. The strategy to consolidate the servers for different applications helped the company to optimise the amount of space and to reduce the cooling needs in its datacenter, thereby, reduced the energy costs. In this way, Wipro changed its non-energy data centre into a green energy data centre. Wipro also started its e-waste disposal management program which was another initiative to develop green waste management program. Through this program, company collected the discarded systems waste from the customers and delivered it to the certified vendors. The vendors were certified by the Pollution Control Board. In 2007, Wipro also appeared as a first Indian company which introduced eco-friendly range of desktops and laptops. By introducing these laptops and desktops, Wipro was aiming to reduce e-waste in the environment. Wipro also introduced a range of other products which were environment friendly and they were named as Green Ware. These products were manufactured from the materials which were free from the hazardous material such as heavy metals like lead, mercury and cadmium, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and Brominated flame retardants. All of the other companies were using these ingredients in their products however; Wipro designed its products such as PCs without using these hazardous items. In this way, Green Ware products of the company were compliant with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). Wipro has been very active in joining the campaigns and initiatives taken at global level for environmental safety. Wipro joined the Green Grid in June 2008 which was a global consortium and started to enhance energy efficiency in datacenters and business computing ecosystems. The company was not joining such platforms to get aim but the aim of the company was to actually contribute in enhancing the green technology and systems. It is also evident from the fact that Wipro joined Green Grid in June 2008 and in the same month company also joined EcoEye initiative. EcoEye initiative was a comprehensive plan aimed to increase ecological sustainability in all operations and engaging its shareholders. By joining this program, Wipro showed that it is very active in taking initiatives on green concerns. As mentioned in the case study, Chandran commented on this initiative taken by Wipro. He argues that this initiative has been taken as a collaborative effort between the employees, suppliers and customers of the company. Wipro has also taken the initiative to involve all of its participants of supply chain in green initiatives. The statement of Chandran shows that collaborative efforts of the employees, suppliers and customers helped the company to take huge initiatives. Chandran also showed the concerns of the company to establish supply chain social environmental responsibility guidelines. Moreover, the company was also enthusiastic to work with the suppliers to reduce the use of hazardous materials in their products regardless of the fact that European Restriction Hazardous Directive (RoHS) restricts the use of material or not. By working with the suppliers on the use of different kinds of hazardous material, Wipro showed its concerns towards environment. The company aimed to remove all those materials which can be hazardous for the environment either directly or indirectly. Therefore, the green initiatives taken by Wipro shows that company has taken initiatives from individual level to societal level and because of this reason the green IT practices of the company became very fruitful. 2. What were the some of the challenges faced by Wipro? What benefits did Wipro read from green computing? Wipro is the leader of IT solutions in the Indian market and the profitability of company was increasing because of the high demand of Wipro’s server. The exponential growth of the servers in the market created a challenge for the company because energy costs were increasing. To convert the non-green datacenter into a green data centre also appeared as a major challenge for the company because of the financial strain that was associated with it. The challenge for the company was to invest Rs. 6 million initial investments to visualise the infrastructure and the investment could go in vain, if the strategy implementation had failed. Another challenge for the company was to conduct a review of the previous datacenter to re-architecture the new one. For this the IT vendors had to review the entire blueprint of the old datacenter such as the organisation of the racks of datacenter and the energy and cooling requirements. All efforts of the company were to introduce the green practices. The environment related policies and regulations also created huge challenges for the company. For example, European Restriction of Hazardous Substances was adopted by the European Union in 2003 and this plan restricted the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacturing of various kinds of electrical equipment and electronic products. Like all of the other companies, Wipro was also using the restricted materials in its products; therefore, it had become challenge for the company to introduce the products free from the restricted hazardous material. Wipro did take it as a challenge and the company got successful in introducing the Green Ware products such as computers which were free from the restricted hazardous material. To take huge initiatives was not the sole responsibility of the Vendors but to involve every participant of the supply chain management also appeared as a challenge for the company. From suppliers to the employees and customers, everyone had to become the part of the initiatives taken by the company. The participation of top management of the company also appeared as a great support. Therefore, the challenge for Wipro to involve everyone in taking green initiatives got successful. The green computing appeared as a huge initiative of the company towards green environment. It enabled the company to develop an end-to-end waste management system. The end-to-end e-waste management system helped the company to manage waste from product life cycle, spanning designing, and manufacturing to the final disposal of the product. Through green computing, at individual level, the company improved the efficiency of its operations, reduced its serve requirement, optimised its space and reduced the energy costs and consumption. At societal level, Wipro appeared as one of the leading organisations active in green concerns. The efforts of the company contributed a lot to environmental protection and also improved the image of the company as a socially responsible organisation. Moreover, green IT practices of the company also taught various lessons to IT companies. 3. What lessons can other organisations learn from Wipro’s experience? The companies especially dealing in the IT sector can derive many lessons from the experience of Wipro. The first lesson which has been derived from this case study is that being a leader in the industry and enjoying the significant growth of the products and profitability cannot guarantee success for a company. To become a true leader in the industry and to ensure survival and to enjoy the leadership for a considerable period of time, the company has to contribute a lot towards its social responsibility and customer care. This is what Wipro did being a leader in Indian IT industry. When the company felt a huge exponential growth of its servers in the market, the company also determined the concerns related to the increasing growth. Therefore, companies dealing in IT industry and other sectors should not be ignorant of the concerns that are associated with the increasing or decreasing demand of their products. Secondly, to appear as social responsible organisations, companies prefer joining environmental programs and seek to become visible on such platforms. In order to become a socially responsible organisation, company has to start taking green initiatives right from their own platform. By converting a non-green datacenter into a green one datacenter, Wipro not only optimised the space of datacenter but it also reduced the cooling needs. Moreover, the companies show review their supply chain blueprints to identify the stages at which they can impact the environment. Wipro’s e-waste disposal management program shows that the responsibility of a manufacturer is not limited to the production and distribution of the products but a manufacturer is also responsible when it comes to dispose of the products. Through e-waste management program Wipro showed that a socially responsible organisation has to take green initiatives at each stage of its supply chain management from product innovation (development of product by using environmental hazardous free materials) to product disposal. The awareness of consumers is increasing on environmental concerns, therefore, consumers are also demanding for green technology. Investing huge amounts of money in research on product development and finally developing the products with hazardous material can never ensure the success of the company. The argument that most of the other companies are using the hazardous material cannot cover the unethical behaviour of the company. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the companies to ensure that the products they are manufacturing are in compliance with the related environmental protection laws. For a socially responsible organisation, the responsibility to use hazardous free material is not limited to the compliance with related environmental protection laws but the company has the responsibility to analyse each and every ingredient of the product evaluate its impact on the environment. Being a socially responsible organisation, Wipro collaborated with its suppliers to determine the components which could be hazardous for the environment. To focus on green initiatives is not the responsibility of IT vendors only but the whole staff of the company from top management to distributors can play an important role. Wipro’s CEO made his personal mission to bring a change in the company and to achieve his mission; he participated from inception to the continuous monitoring of the progress of EcoEye. Accountability is also important when it comes to implement decisions. At Wipro to keep a check and balance on the operations of all projects of the company, a Governing council was established. The top leaders of the company were the members of this council. All projects of Wipro were evaluated from ecological and financial perspective and finally governing council used to sign off the project. If any kind of concern rose then this bunch of people would have been responsible for it. Therefore, it is very important for the companies to sketch visible lines of accountability and authority to avoid environmental concerns. Another significant lesson provided by this case study to the other companies is that if a company adopts green IT practices at every stage of its business then and only then it can be able to improve the efficiency and performance of its overall operations. As a result of Wipro’s green IT practices, the company got able to reduce its servers from 400 to 100 and on annual basis company saved about 1 million KWh of power. The power management tools also helped the company to reduce the power consumption by 26 percent. Moreover, through visualisation and consolidation, Wipro targeted a reduction in its footprint by 3 percent. In short, the green initiatives not only help the companies to become ethical and socially responsible organisations but these initiatives also improve the personal operations and efficiencies of the companies. The diagram shows the relationship between ethical, social and political issues in a society. This diagram finds significant implications in the case of Wipro’s green initiatives. By focusing on various issues raised by information systems such as information rights and obligations, increasing accountability and control, and improving system quality Wipro made significant contributions in improving the quality of life. Therefore, companies dealing in IT sector need to understand their obligations at individual and social level and they needs to understand the relationship between political, social and ethical issues to improve their performance. Moreover, the ethical analysis of information systems and those who manage them at Wipro has also underpinned some important concept which other companies should consider very seriously. First, the company operating in IT sector should take the responsibility of all the potential costs, duties and obligations. Secondly, to increase responsibility, companies should develop mechanism for accountability as Wipro did by establishing a governing council. Third, the companies should be liable for the actions they take. Moreover, laws should be fully understood because they are developed to reduce unethical practices. 4. Should green computing be driven by IT vendors or should it be driven by corporate customers? Discuss When it comes to talk about whether green computing should be driven by IT vendors or it should be driven by corporate customers, there will be many who will consider it the responsibility of IT Vendors and there will be many who will nominate corporate customers. In my point of view, green computing is driven by both the IT vendors and the corporate customers. Since everybody including IT vendors and corporate customers are aware of green computing therefore, they both can play their role. The initiative of green computing has reaped out because of the increasing environmental concerns and everyone including big or small company, home or university should make efforts to contribute because it is not only advantageous for the environment but it is also cost efficient (Harris, 2008). On the other hand, it is also believed that green computing is driven by technological developments and the implementation of such tools and processes which may improve the efficient use of the information systems (Egoliblog). The idea behind this statement also considers IT vendors as the major drivers of green computing. Even there are many people who consider other factors as major drivers of green computing. A survey by computer relater CDW showed that in small organisation green initiatives (such as green computing) are driven by a senior executive (Croll, 2008). Since the survey scope was limited to the small companies where level of authority is in the hands of top management, therefore, such results could be expected. However, in the large IT firms like Wipro, where each action of the company is influenced by customer and society, IT vendors alone cannot drive the need of green computing. Corporate customers can also play a very significant role in driving green computing. Although it is not very much evident from the experiences of Wipro however, there are various other real world examples which actually show that green computing is driven by users. For example, on 2007, Yahoo announced a plan to make its processors more efficient and to reduce carbon emissions in the environment, by becoming carbon-neutral. In order to achieve this initiative, Yahoo has to buy carbon offsets, has to build its datacenters to its own specifications. According to Mares, a representative of Yahoo, green computing at Yahoo is driven mostly by the customer demand (Brodkin, 2007). Can green computing be entirely driven by corporate customers? In real world the answer to this question will be a big ‘No’. The reason is that corporations keep on embarking about their green concerns in their computing environment; however, the survey results of computer professional show that less than 7% companies have adopted green IT initiatives and 1/3 are still on planning stages (Shelly & Vermaat, 2009). Shelly and Vermat argue that green computing in organisations is driven by financial goals of the companies to save electricity and not the ecological goals. It is very important for the corporate culture to reinforce such a strategy or structural design that can facilitate the organisation to become more effective within the environment of ethical and cultural values (Chatterjee, 2010). Therefore, if both the IT vendors and corporate customers will play their role to emphasise on green computing then both the strategic goals of the company and the ecological goals can be achieved. How is IT contributing to increased carbon emission? What are some estimates of the extent of the problem? Which IT practices are some of the biggest culprits? IT products are contributing a lot in increasing environmental concerns. The idea of how much IT industry is contributing in Carbon emission and environmental concerns can be understood from the fact that of energy efficiency motors are used in China’s plants, carbon emission can be cut by 200 metric megatons annually which is equal to emission produced in Netherlands (Boccaletti, 2008). Carbon emission through IT products and increasing non-green practices of various IT manufacturing companies are increasing environmental concerns day by day. Kelly (2008) highlights that if green practices are not encouraged by IT manufacturers then carbon emissions will grow five-folds over coming decade. Huge efforts are being made by the small and large IT manufacturers to reduce carbon emission. In 2007, carbon dioxide emission cut by information technology industry is 32 million metric tons. Various IT practices and products are contributing to increasing environmental concerns. The material used in manufacturing of IT tools such as computers, laptops and other materials might contain the hazardous material which on their disposal can contribute to significant carbon emission. The higher energy consumption such as for fulfilling servers’ cooling needs increasing energy costs and consumption. Actually the entire IT sector is based on energy consumption therefore, each part or component of IT product or service is contributing significantly in increasing environmental concerns. A recent research has shown that two searches on Google Engine generated 15 gram of energy, equal to a boiling kettle (Swaine, 2002). What is Wipro’s carbon accounting tool? How can it help companies? Although Wipro has contributed a lot to teach IT companies the various ways through which green practices can be adopted, however, another remarkable accounting tool offered by Wipro. Wipro Carbon Accounting tool has been offered as a solution to companies to become environmentally responsible organisations. This tool can help the companies to manage GHQ risks and identify reduction opportunities. It can also facilitate these companies to comply with the standards and government regulations related to energy efficiency and emissions. This tool also increases public reporting and participation of enterprises in voluntary GHG programs and GHG markets for emission trading (Wipro, 2010). What are carbon credits? How can they be used by Wipro? Carbon credit is a permit which can be traded in international markets at some specific prices and it allows the holder of the permit the right to emit one ton of carbon dioxide. This permit is awarded to the companies, groups or countries which reduce their green houses gasses below their emission quota (Investopedia). The size of global carbon credit market is around $60 million (Stillman, 2008). Wipro can use carbon credits to increase its capability to meet regulatory needs. Secondly, company can use it to invest in renewable energy projects and other projects. Thirdly, by purchasing carbon credits, Wipro can also encourage the other companies to play an important role in saving energy. Moreover, the more carbon credits Wipro will be awarded the more social responsibility it will show. What are the green initiatives undertaken by other major IT vendors, specifically IBM, Microsoft, and HP?   The big IT vendors have adopted different strategies to reduce carbon emission through their IT products. These companies are investing huge sums of money to learn impact of IT in environment. Very recently, a coalition was made by Dell, HP, Google, Microsoft and other IT giants with the name Climate Servers Computing Initiatives and the aim of study was to determine carbon dioxide emissions associated with IT equipment. Through this study, these IT vendors are planning to cut 38 metric tons of carbon dioxide emission by 2015 (Dignan, 2010). HP has planned to reduce energy consumption through its IT based products by 25 percent in 2010. HP has introduced closed loop inkjet cartridge recycling process through which the power consumer recycled plastic is used to manufacture new original HP inkjet print cartridges. In this way the company is trying to take initiatives to improve environmental protection (HP, 2010). Microsoft is also planning to develop applications with independent software developers that do not need CPU cycles unnecessarily. Moreover, the company has also introduced a new 35 energy management features in Vista which is expected to play significant role in green practices (mcmilker, 2008). Another big IT giant IBM has been also striving to take initiatives in green technology practices such as in 2007, company declared a US$1 billion service initiative of one year which was aimed to redesign and rebuilt the data centres of the company for reducing the energy needs (Connor, 2007). Therefore, practices of IT vendors show that green concerns have become very alarming and more and more strategies need to be adopted to reduce these concerns. Bibliography Boccaletti, G. (2008). How it can Cut Carbon Emissions. 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Retrieved October 27, 2010, from http://www.wipro.com/industries/transportation/logistics/solutions/carbon-accounting-tool.htm Read More