Title: A 360 degree carbon audit of the ICT industry

Authors: Easwar Krishna Iyer; Bhavana Rao

Addresses: Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai 603102, Tamil Nadu, India ' Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai 603102, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: Computing and communications have altered the way in which the world works and lives today. Captured within a single acronym, 'ICT' has majorly shaped the growth and sustenance of every other industry in this planet. But growth invariably comes with a price. The high energy consumption of the ICT industry and its attendant environmental fallouts threatens to undo the positives that the industry is otherwise associated with. This paper does a 360 degree Carbon Audit of the ICT Industry. The tool used for the audit is the Bow-Tie Diagram, a risk evaluation tool. The paper does a threat-consequence mapping of the increasing carbon footprint of the ICT industry. Five threats and three consequences are identified. Then using literature survey, the paper delineates twenty five barriers that can help in containing the carbon footprint of the ICT industry. Seventeen of the 25 identified barriers are on the threat side and the remaining eight are on the consequences side of the Bow-Tie.

Keywords: carbon audit; energy conservation; ICT industry; bow-tie diagram; threats; consequences; barrier management; cloud computing; green IT; green ICT; information and communications technology; information technology; risk assessment; carbon footprint; environmental pollution.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIIM.2014.067431

International Journal of Intercultural Information Management, 2014 Vol.4 No.2/3, pp.158 - 182

Received: 30 Apr 2014
Accepted: 08 Dec 2014
Published online: 09 May 2015 *

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