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Green ICT Assessment for Organisations

Article · January 2017

DOI: 10.13052/jicts2245-800X.421

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 Green ICT Assessment
for Organisations

Albert Hankel1,∗ , Gaston Heimeriks2

and Patricia Lago1

1
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Department of Computer Science,
De Boelelaan 1018a, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2
Utrecht University, Department of Innovation Studies, Copernicus Institute,
Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
*Corresponding Author: [email protected]

Received 16 February 2017;

Accepted 8 March 2017

Abstract
This study shows how a maturity model on Green ICT can help organisations
become more environmentally sustainable in a structured and efficient manner.
For this we have used the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model and facilitated
the use of this model in four organisations. These organisations participated in
a maturity scan, an evaluation session to discuss the results of the scan and a
questionnaire on the use of the model. The results show that the model delivers
specific suggestions for improvement both on reducing the environmental
footprint of ICT and on using ICT as a green solution for business processes.
Individual participants reported an increase in awareness on what Green ICT
can do. We also looked at whether organisations were ready to use Green ICT
and identified potential bottlenecks for further adoption and it was possible to
identify such bottlenecks using the results of the maturity scan.

Keywords: Green ICT, ICT for Sustainability, Green IS, Maturity Model,
Assessment.

Journal of ICT, Vol. 4 2, 87–110.

doi: 10.13052/jicts2245-800X.421
c 2017 River Publishers. All rights reserved.
88 A. Hankel et al.

1 Introduction
In both academic research and industry the environmental impact of ICT
is an important topic spanning multiple disciplines. ICT is seen as both a
relevant contributor to CO2 -emissions due to its increasing carbon footprint
[20], and as an enabler for reducing the footprint of other sectors through
“smart” systems (e.g. smart buildings, smart grids). According to a report
of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative, ICT itself is roughly responsible for
2,3% of global CO2 -emissions, while ICT solutions have the potential to
reduce global CO2 -emissions by up to 16% [2].
While Green ICT is often seen as a field focused solely on reducing the
environmental impact of ICT itself, we define Green ICT as a combination
of activities that minimise the negative impact of ICT on the environment
and optimise the positive impact ICT can have. Or, in other words, as any
activity that considers the direct, indirect and systemic impact of ICT on the
environment [4]. Because the relations between ICT and the environment
are numerous and often complex, it is important to be aware of all these
effects: any change may have a direct impact on for example resource
consumption, it may optimise other processes (indirect impact) and it could
have a long-lasting systemic impact on people’s behaviour and thus the larger
system (organisation, market, society, etcetera). While these effects are widely
recognised and can be understood on an abstract or global level, it is often
difficult for individuals or organisations to apply them.
In the past decade more and more organisations have realised that their
actions have long term effects on the environment and society and are taking
responsibility for their actions through several social and environmental
initiatives that reduce their impact [19]. Green ICT can contribute significantly
and can thus help organisations achieve their sustainability goals. In order to
do so, they need to know how ICT can affect their environmental footprint in
both negative and positive ways.
For example, we know that ICT can consume large amounts of energy in
datacenters and in (mobile) communication networks [11]. It is also important
to consider the use of rare materials in ICT equipment production as well as
what happens with the equipment at the end of their life cycle, also known as
e-waste [3]. On the other hand, ICT solutions can reduce the need to travel,
dematerialise paper use and material use, and optimise business processes as
a whole. When organisations consider Green ICT, they often focus only on the
first part, to reduce the environmental impact of ICT. The second part, using
ICT as a solution is much less common.
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 89

In the Dutch Higher Education sector, 91% of the ICT managers consider
Green ICT an important factor to help make their organisation more sustain-
able [13]. Yet, they recognise that there is a lack of knowledge and expertise
to make full use of Green ICT. In fact, they asked SURF, the collaborative
ICT organisation for Dutch education and research, to help them give:
• a more complete insight into Green ICT and inspiration for improvement;
• knowledge about how well they are doing (compared to others);
• a shared language for knowledge exchange between organisations;
• the ICT department a way to show higher management how they
contribute towards larger sustainability goals.
This is why SURF developed the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model (SGIMM)
[14], which we describe in Section 3.
For this study we followed four organisations that used the SGIMM to see
whether it does in practice what it is designed for. We also wanted to know if
the model can help identify issues related to the state of the adoption of Green
ICT solutions. We therefore have two research questions:
1. Does the SGIMM deliver in practice what it is designed for and does it
address the needs expressed by the ICT managers above?
2. Does the use of the SGIMM identify potential bottlenecks for further
adoption of Green ICT?

2 Related Work
To put our work into context, we looked at two topics. The first regards other
maturity models: which have been published, what are their scopes (with
regards to negative and positive impact), and how are they being used. The
second is on the adoption of Green ICT: what happens when organisations use
such maturity models and what is their general attitude towards sustainability
and Green ICT.

2.1 On Green ICT Maturity Models

In order to facilitate and promote the use of Green ICT, frameworks and
models have been published both in academic and practitioner literature. We
also identified general-purpose impact assessment tools that can be applied to
ICT, such as life cycle analysis or green house gases audits (see Ecofys et al.
[8] for an overview of general tools applied to ICT). Here we focus on those
publications that target Green ICT specifically.
90 A. Hankel et al.

Most of the Green ICT models and tools focus on energy efficiency and
reducing the negative impacts of ICT, such as those developed by the Green
Grid and the OpenDCME model. While these are mostly focused on data
centres, others such as those developed by Gartner [10] and Molla et al. [18]
do capture the entirety of ICT. However, they are often limited to the direct
impacts in scope or are very abstract. A few tools have been developed to
include the positive impacts of ICT, such as those by UK HM Government
[12], deMonsabert et al. [6] and Donnellan et al. [7]. Still they mostly focus
on the negative impacts as well. From a system perspective (or the total
global footprint of society) this seems strange since the negative impacts
are responsible for 2% of that footprint, while the positive impacts have the
potential to reduce the global footprint by 16% [2]. Therefore we argue that
models should include both to fully understand the contribution ICT can have.
A few models and frameworks exist that help apply Green ICT principles
to business processes in an organisation. For example, the framework in [7]
contains the capability building block “ICT-enabled business processes”. They
found that involving the ICT department as well as ‘business’ departments
raises awareness on both sides of the potential of Green ICT. However, the
framework offers little practical guidelines to apply Green ICT to business
processes. In general, the impression we gather from other work – and this is
also what we experience – is that it is difficult to apply Green ICT outside the
datacenter.
From the perspective of practical usability, the published models vary in
how abstract they are, their scope and ease of use. Some are very general,
simply declaring areas that should be looked at, while others give detailed
information on how to improve an element. By looking at the meta-level,
it can be seen that most of them have a very similar structure. Most of
them have a general idea of what should be included in Green ICT (albeit
different from other models), and use a two-tier system (categories in which
several components are grouped together). Some of the models include extra
aspects such as maturity levels that help give direction for improvement. Such
a general structure could indicate a future standard structure for assessing,
evaluating and improving the use of green ICT. If many organisations use the
same model or at least the same structure in their models, this could pave the
way for standardisation and eventually benchmarking.
As far as we can derive from research literature and practice, there is a
lack of publications on assessing the quality of the tools, if and how they are
being used and whether they achieve their intended effects. Similarly, there
has not been a lot of research on what capabilities companies need in order
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 91

to green their ICT and how to measure these capabilities [19]. While such
questions might be trivial for other assessment topics, this is not the case for
the environmental impact of ICT. Environmental sustainability is typically
multidimensional and prone to local optimisations and it is therefore complex
to assess progress.

2.2 On Green ICT Adoption

Following our definition of Green ICT, a proper use of Green ICT should
affect many if not all business processes and activities in an organisation. This
means that it has a large impact on most of the staff, requiring them to have the
right attitude and skills to use Green ICT. Adoption of Green ICT is therefore
not a trivial problem just contained to the technical domain, but a complex
one that affects policies and behaviours beyond the ICT staff.
In [17] Molla differentiates between the intention to adopt Green ICT
and the actual adoption. The first steps in an organisation are usually taken
by a few individuals that were motivated to do so and had enough power to
initiate such a change. Even if successful, they often find it difficult to scale
up their activities. Molla [17] identified three types of drivers for Green ICT:
economic, regulatory and ethical drivers. ICT is consuming large amounts
of energy so energy efficiency gains can lead to significant cost reductions
in operating ICT. Governments can require ICT within organisations to
become compliant with environmental standards. Directive 2012/19/EU of
the European Parliament and the European Council on waste electrical and
electronic equipment (WEEE) [9] set recycling targets for all types of electrical
goods. The government of the Netherlands has signed agreements with many
sectors (amongst which the Higher Education sector [1]) to increase energy
efficiency every year by 2%. Finally, ethical drivers refer to the pursuit of
socially responsible business practices and good corporate citizenship.
Even if an organisation has the intention to adopt Green ICT, this does
not necessarily mean that it has the capability to do so. Molla and Cooper
[19] argue that there are at least five important properties that they together
call the critical capability “G-readiness”. These five properties are: attitude,
policy, practice, technology and governance. Attitude refers to the extent to
which leaders and professionals are aware of and interested in environmental
concerns; policy refers to whether there are top-down strategies or other
policy documents that push people in the right direction; practice refers to
whether the knowledge and skills are present to carry out Green ICT actions;
technology refers to the presence of a technological infrastructure that allows
92 A. Hankel et al.

for environmental friendly actions; and governance refers to the presence of

a proper management infrastructure detailing clear roles, responsibilities and
relationships [19].
In 2013 we did a survey [13] amongst managers and professionals in
the Higher Education sector in the Netherlands that relates to the concept of
G-readiness. 91% of the survey participants stated that they think sustainability
is an important topic. In contrast, only 59% of them believed their own
organisation considered it important. The survey respondents recognised a
lack of action which was attributed to a shortage on time, a lack of money, a
lack of expertise, no priority or split budgets. Each of these can be connected
to one or more of the five properties that Molla and Cooper defined as part of
G-readiness [19].
It would be interesting to see whether using a maturity model in practice
will not only identify areas of improvement that directly affect the environ-
mental footprint, but also identify potential bottlenecks in an organisation to
actually adopt Green ICT.

3 SURF Green ICT Maturity Model (SGIMM)

SURF, the Dutch higher education and research partnership for ICT, decided to
develop a maturity model on Green ICT after interviewing a number of Dutch
higher education and research institutions. In these interviews the institutions
expressed a clear need for some way to know how well they are doing in
terms of Green ICT. SURF wanted to develop a maturity model based on
expert views and opinions and validate this through a survey spread amongst
practitioners. The SGIMM was developed by SURF in collaboration with the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a number of Green ICT experts, both from
the Dutch higher education and research community as well as outside it.
Responsibility for ICT in organisations part of this community is typically
delegated to an ICT department. The SGIMM was therefore designed from
the ICT department’s perspective. Even though the SGIMM is developed for
higher education, it can be applied by other organisations as it covers topics
that are equally relevant for any organisation. More information on the model
can be found in [14]. At this website it is also available for download and it
can be used freely under a creative commons license.
The notion of maturity model is based on the Capability Maturity Model
[21], a framework with five maturity levels for quality and process improve-
ments. The five levels are (1) initial, (2) repeatable, (3) defined, (4) managed
and (5) optimising. At the lowest level, the initial level, the organisation does
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 93

not provide a stable environment for the activity. At this level the process is
ad hoc. However, at the highest level, which is the optimising level, the entire
organisation is focused on continuous process improvement [21].
The SGIMM conceptually consists of four domains covering negative
and positive impacts and aspects of ICT. Each domain consists of attributes
that have a definition, factors involved and descriptions of each of the five
maturity levels. Three domains and attributes are generally applicable to any
organisation, being: ‘Green ICT in the Organisation’, ‘Greening of ICT’
and ‘Greening of Operations with ICT’. The fourth domain is sector-specific
and covers ‘Greening of primary processes with ICT’. For instance, for the
higher education sector, the primary processes would relate to education and
research. The first three domains and attributes are summarised in Table 1.
The SGIMM is designed to give organisations insights into the maturity
of Green ICT of the organisation. It is set-up as a self-assessment and enables
organisations to have an internal dialogue, to gain agreement on the status
quo and to define actions for improvement. By letting several individuals
within an organisation score the attributes and discussing theses scores with
the participants (average, minimum, maximum scores, etc.), an organisation
can identify weak and strong Green ICT aspects.
The relevancy and completeness of the SGIMM was evaluated in a survey
amongst Dutch practitioners by Hankel et al. [15]. The survey allowed us to

Table 1 Overview of the first three domains and related attributes of the SGIMM
Green ICT in the Greening of ICT Greening of
Organisation Operations with ICT
Green ICT Strategy Housing Travel reductions
with ICT
Governance of ICT Computing Area reductions with
Services Infrastructure ICT
Green ICT Network Energy reductions
Procurement Infrastructure with ICT
E-waste Policy Storage Paper reductions with
Infrastructure ICT
Green ICT in End user ICT Feedback and
Information equipment Decision support
Management and
Architecture
Community Software and ICT
Collaboration services
Green ICT Supply
Chain Management
94 A. Hankel et al.

assess the quality of the maturity model and to improve it if necessary. For
this study we used the version that was released after these adjustments.

4 Method of Field Study

The maturity model was designed to help organisations improve on the use of
Green ICT within the organisation. The assumption is that assessing the level
of maturity of Green ICT increases awareness and motivation to improve
across the full spectrum: from reducing the negative impact of ICT to using
ICT as an environmental friendly enabler in other processes. At this point at
least, it is impossible to test this theory, as this requires large-scale use of the
model and access to organisations using the model versus those not using it.
However we do want to see what the effect of using the model is in a qualitative
manner.
In order to address our research questions, we carried out a field study
where four organisations used the maturity model. The purpose of this study
was to see how the SGIMM is used in practice. We facilitated the process of
carrying out a maturity scan and collected data for our study while doing so. In
addition to the normal process we added a questionnaire to gather individual
responses to the use of the model.

4.1 Data Collection

The organisations that participated were all facilitated in the same manner.
The approach is based on guidelines for a self-scan that are provided in the
instructions that come with the maturity model. The following steps were
taken (see also Figure 1):
1. The primary contact at the participating organisation was the Assessment
Manager (AM), for example the CIO or an ICT manager with sustain-
ability in his or her portfolio. It is important that the AM has the influence
and the ability to make sure that the maturity scan is properly done and
that follow-up actions are implemented.
2. The AM composed an assessment team. This is a group of people that
represents the organisation and were tasked to fill out the maturity model.
Their scores are used to get an average maturity score for each attribute.
After obtaining the averages, they are discussed during an evaluation
session at which also a number of possible actions for improvement are
defined. To obtain good results, the right combination of team members
is crucial.
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 95

3. TheAM explained the purpose of the model and the assessment process to
the team (with or without our presence) and sent the SGIMM spreadsheet
to all the participants afterwards.
4. All participants individually filled out the spreadsheet and scored all
the attributes. When everyone has sent their scores back to the AM, we
facilitated the AM by analysing the results and creating a summary.
5. The summary of maturity scores and how it relates to the individual scores
are discussed in an evaluation session with the assessment team. We
facilitated this by presenting the results and asking questions to promote
discussion amongst the team members. Based on this discussion, actions
for improvement are defined. We created a report on the results of this
evaluation session and shared it with the AM.
6. After the session the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire on
their experience with using the maturity model. As mentioned, the AM
was provided with a summary of the process that could then be used to
create an action plan.
The evaluation session is the key part in the assessment process, and not
necessarily the maturity scores that followed from the individual submissions.
The SGIMM is set up in such a way that organisations identify areas of
improvement rather than objectively assessing the maturity level of said
organisation. Nevertheless, the scores do give a good indication of the maturity
of the organisation, especially when combined with and supported by the
results of the evaluation session.

Figure 1 The assessment process in a flow diagram. AM = Assessment Manager; AT =

Assessment Team; F = Facilitator.
96 A. Hankel et al.

The evaluation sessions were facilitated through presenting the analyses

of the individual scores combined. Each of the domains was briefly illustrated
by showing a radar diagram with the minimum, maximum, and median scores
(an example is included in Figure 2). Then the individual scores were shown as
in Table 2, in which the scores that deviated by 1 point or more from the average
were highlighted. Both strong individual deviations and the general averages
were used to stimulate the discussions. The sessions were video-recorded.
The questionnaire after the evaluation session was purposely simple and
brief and consisted of the following questions:
• Did you find it useful to fill out the maturity model? Why (not)?
• Did you gain more insight in the possibilities of Green ICT?
• Are you more motivated to apply Green ICT?
• Will you apply more Green ICT in your daily routines?
• Do you have any feedback on the maturity model?

4.2 Method of Analysis

In this study we used the results of the maturity scan, the video recording
and the questionnaire in our qualitative analysis of the four participating
organisations. The direct results of this field study are mostly focused on
identifying what can be improved and possibly how they can be improved.
Going through the collected data we can find indicators for other aspects as
well. This will yield a qualitative description of the state of adoption and
identify possible bottlenecks for these organisations.

Figure 2 Example of a radar diagram with minimum, maximum and median scores. These
scores are not based on a real organisation.
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 97

Table 2 Example of scores with 9 participants. The deviations of 1 point or more from the
average are highlighted
Greening of Operations
with ICT A B C D E F G H I Avg
Travel reductions 2 3 2 1 3 2 3 3 2 2,3
with ICT
Area reductions with ICT 2 2 1 2 3 3 4 2 2 2,3
Energy reductions 1 2 2 3 2 1 4 2 1 2
with ICT
Paper reductions 2 2 3 3 3 2 3 2 2 2,4
with ICT
Feedback and decision 1 3 2 1 2 1 3 1 1 1,7
support

For each of organisations we have collected evidence for the properties of

the G-readiness model – attitude, policy, practice, technology and governance
[19]. From the descriptions of Molla [19] we adapted checks for each of these
properties:
• Attitude – Leaders and professionals, both in ICT and in business, are
aware of and interested in the role of ICT in resolving environmental
problems.
• Policy – Green ICT and sustainability policies are developed throughout
the organisation and permeate the value chain.
• Practice – The organisation has implemented the policies and takes
actions to reduce their carbon footprint through the use of ICT.
• Technology – A green (business) infrastructure is present and updated
according to the latest green (ICT) standards.
• Governance – An organisation has clearly defined roles and responsibili-
ties for Green ICT activities, administrates them properly, measures their
impact and has allocated resources for them.
We have used these checks to see whether the use of the SGIMM gives
any indications on these readiness issues. These can then be used to identify
possible bottlenecks for the further implementation of Green ICT.

5 Results
Four organisations participated in this study. These organisations are all from
the Dutch Higher Education sector representing universities and universities
of applied sciences. Each has a staff of 3000–5000 employees (including
academics) and 20000–40000 students. ICT is a part of normal business
98 A. Hankel et al.

operations in administrative processes, management systems and as part of

office equipment. In addition ICT is used in primary processes for education
and research so there is a significant presence of ICT equipment and services
and therefore a high potential for influencing the environmental footprint.

5.1 Results from the Maturity Scan and Questionnaire

Each organisation had an assessment team of 4–10 members who all filled out
the maturity scan individually. Most of the team members were from the ICT
department and 1 or 2 were from other departments such as Facilities or other
faculty staff. The averages for each organisation on each attribute are shown
in Table 3.
In the domain ‘Green ICT in the Organisation’ we found that for all
organisations a Green ICT Strategy document did not exist. Sometimes there
was a short position paper on sustainability from an ICT perspective that
connected to the general sustainability policies but those were not well known.
Good governance of ICT services was common practice for the participating
organisations, even without environmental considerations. For other policies
usually there were some guidelines that were applied by people motivated to
do so, but these were not broadly supported and communicated.
Common practices amongst the participants in the second domain were
virtualisation of server hardware, free cooling in data centers (where possible),
applying sleep mode in equipment powered over ethernet (e.g. IP telephones),
hot-cold-frozen data storage, pc power management and centralising equip-
ment such as printers (shared instead of private use). The organisations found
it difficult to balance reliability and availability (redundancy) with energy
efficiency, which was reflected in not so green solutions for key elements in
the ICT infrastructure such as network equipment. Monitoring on green KPIs
was not very common as of yet.
The scores in the third domain ‘Greening of operations with ICT’ showed
more variation between the organisations. One organisation focused more
on support for video conference solutions and teleworking, the other offered
flexible office space and a third had banned all paper work as much as possible.
For most organisations the financial department was having difficulties to
transform to paperless. In terms of using ICT to reduce other energy con-
sumption, this seemed quite difficult for all participants because there is not a
strong connection between those responsible for ICT and those responsible
for building and facility management.
The final domain felt as undiscovered territory for all organisations. Some-
times there is ad hoc collaboration between researchers, teachers or students
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 99

Table 3 Overview of average scores at each of the participating organisations. Minimum

score is 1, maximum is 5
A B C D
Green ICT in the organisation
Green ICT Strategy 1,8 1,8 1,6 1,2
Governance of ICT services 2,6 3,8 2,6 2,8
Green ICT Procurement 2,1 2,6 2,1 1,8
E-waste Policy 2,2 3,2 2,3 1,4
Green ICT in Information 1,7 2,0 1,4 1,4
Management and Architecture
Community collaboration 2,3 3,0 1,8 1,6
Green ICT Supply Chain 2,0 2,6 1,8 1,6
Management
Greening of ICT
Housing 2,0 2,2 1,8 1,6
Computing infrastructure 1,9 2,2 1,8 1,6
Network infrastructure 1,6 2,2 1,6 1,3
Storage infrastructure 2,0 2,0 1,6 1,3
End user ICT equipment 2,4 2,6 1,8 1,4
Software and ICT services 1,6 1,6 1,4 1,2
Greening of Operations
with ICT
Travel reductions with ICT 3,0 3,0 2,3 1,8
Area reductions with ICT 2,7 2,6 2,3 2,4
Energy reductions with ICT 1,8 2,0 2,0 1,4
Paper reductions with ICT 2,9 2,8 2,4 2,2
Feedback and decision support 1,4 2,0 1,7 1,2
Greening of Primary Processes
with ICT
Education 1,5 2,0 1,9 1,6
Education support 1,6 2,0 1,7 1,6
Research 1,7 1,8 1,4 1,2
Research support 1,7 1,8 1,8 1,2
Valorisation 1,6 1,6 1,2 1,2
Information access 1,6 2,0 2,2 1,5

and the ICT department but this was rare on the theme of sustainability. All
organisations recognised the potential of such a collaboration, especially with
those working in fields closely related to the theme, and expressed the intention
to explore the possibilities.
The results for the questionnaire are summarised over all participating
organisations as they did not show any significant differences between the
organisations. 93% of all individual participants found it useful to use the
maturity model. In their comments they commonly wrote that it helped their
100 A. Hankel et al.

awareness and that it gave insights in where their organisation stood. This
was also reflected in their answers to further questions where again 93% had
learned about new possibilities in using Green ICT, 73% was inspired to
promote more Green ICT activity and 67% was planning to apply Green ICT
principles in their daily work. The feedback on the maturity model consisted of
detailed comments that were used to improve the model and general comments
that were on the whole positive. Some found it difficult to fill out or said that
they needed the evaluation session to fully understand the model.

5.2 Readiness to Adopt Green ICT

Besides the direct results of the maturity scan, we also looked at whether
organisations were ready to adopt Green ICT or that the use of the maturity
model would identify potential bottlenecks for further adoption. What follows
is a summary of our observations for each organisation along the lines of
attitude, policy, practice, technology and governance.
In organisation A sustainability was an important topic in general policies.
For the ICT department this meant that there was room to take sustainable
action in terms of budget and other resources, but there was not a strong
demand from the board as the strategy was focused on making buildings more
energy efficient. The role of ICT in becoming more sustainable was unknown
and if any, rather focused on reducing the energy consumption of ICT itself.
The effect of this was that the general attitude towards sustain-ability amongst
ICT managers and professionals was positive, but that it did not have priority.
Often becoming more green was a side-effect of normal business practices.
Also, part of the ICT professionals feared that sustain-ability actions would
affect their principle priorities such as the reliability of ICT. While a general
Green ICT strategy was present, there were little to no policy guidelines on
topics such as procurement or e-waste. Because of this all, whether Green
ICT actions were taken was strongly dependent on motivated individuals.
In addition, there was not much communication between these individuals
and the rest of the ICT department on this topic; the same goes for the ICT
department and the rest of the organisation. So the possibilities of Green
ICT remained unknown. This was also reflected in the governance where
sustainability within the ICT department was delegated to these individuals
instead of making it a shared responsibility of the entire deparment. Finally, the
technical infrastructure could become a bottleneck in the future if steps were
taken to let energy consumption match the demand on the infrastructure. Now
the infrastructure is designed to ‘always on’ principles because continuity and
reliability are the highest priorities.
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 101

At organisation B sustainability was an important topic in the general

strategy. This was felt throughout the organisation and also at the ICT
department. There were no specific Green ICT policies however, usually
ICT connects to general policies; for procurement for example. There was
a wish to develop such policies though. At organisation B a lot of Green ICT
activities were being put to practice, but they struggled with promoting new
possibilities to users throughout the organisation. Green ICT successes were
not visible outside the ICT department. Even though the policies side was
lacking, in practice sustainability was almost always considered in projects
and activities. In terms of governance, roles and responsibilities were defined
and resources were available. The links with other departments outside of
ICT could be stronger, but there were connections with facilities and the
general sustainability staff. The technical infrastructure was efficient and
potentially adaptable to demand. In general in both technical aspects as well
as user adoption the possibilities to grow and use Green ICT to become more
sustainable were there but the next steps have not been taken yet.
Organisation C was more formal in their approach to the topic. There was
not a specific push from the board to become more sustainable and this was
also reflected in the ICT department; it did not have a high priority. The general
attitude towards sustainability was cautious, but positive though. Green ICT
activities should not affect other business processes negatively. ICT was not
fully centralised, which meant that the governance of ICT infrastructure and
services was also not fully covered. For both governance and policies there
were no specific Green ICT documents implemented. In practice, some Green
ICT actions have been taken, or some steps towards more efficiency could also
be labeled green. Individuals were certainly willing to take such actions, but
sometimes lack the empowerment or the resources. Awareness on Green ICT
outside the ICT department was not present, and also little communication
about the possibilities of Green ICT. Finally, the technical infrastructure
did offer possibilities to make use of Green ICT solutions, but as in other
organisations, the priorities of the ICT departments were not at saving energy
but at keeping the infrastructure available for all users.
Organisation D was just starting with Green ICT so not many Green ICT
actions were put in practice yet. There were some general procurement and
waste process principles, but no policies were in place. Awareness on the
role of ICT in resolving environmental problems inside and outside the ICT
department was low. There was no one responsible for Green ICT yet, so no
governance on the the topic either. In fact each readiness aspect was lacking.
They were certainly aware of this, however, and really saw the use of the
SGIMM as their starting point for implementing Green ICT.
102 A. Hankel et al.

Table 4 Overview of the readiness to adopt Green ICT for all participating organisations
A B C D
Attitude positive positive cautious but lack of
attitude but attitude, both positive awareness
not high from general attitude; not a throughout
priority in management priority
ICT as in ICT
department department
Policy general none in place none in place none in place
strategy
present but
no concrete
guidelines
Practice actions have many actions some actions just starting
been taken have been have been
but highly taken; taken; mostly
dependant on struggle to driven by
motivated get users to motivated
individuals take individuals
advantage
Technology designed for potential potential nothing specific
energy present but present but
efficient not fully other
‘always on’; taken priorities may
other advantage of collide
priorities may
prevent
further steps
Governance delegated to roles and nothing nothing defined
individuals; responsibili- defined
not seen as a ties defined;
shared resources
responsibility available

When framed in the aspects of attitude, policy, practice, technology and

governance, the four organisations vary in their readiness to adopt Green ICT.
In Table 4 the above observations are summarised.

6 Discussion
The goal of the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model is to help organisations
learn more about the possibilities of Green ICT in a practical and efficient
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 103

way. It gives an overview of the most important issues and areas that can be
addressed with Green ICT. As demonstrated in the results, organisations gain
insight in both the ICT-as-a-problem side as well as the ICT-as-a-solution side
in their particular situation.
Looking at the most common improvement suggestions (for example:
putting a green paragraph in project documents, implementing total-cost-of-
ownership in procurement, virtualisation of servers, promoting teleworking,
using power-over-ethernet solutions, improving asset management and mon-
itoring) a pattern seems to emerge that organisations have started picking
the low hanging fruits and are slowly moving beyond these. Some areas are
clearly deemed to be too advanced to take on for now, such as green supply
chain management and applying green principles in software and ICT services.
The concept of a maturity model works well to identify where an organisation
stands and how it can improve. The SGIMM also offers many ways to connect
the ICT department with other departments and the board to show how ICT
can be used to resolve environmental problems. The model can be applied in
an improvement cycle and used as a report. Measuring the Green ICT maturity
repeatedly in a standard way allows organisations to see whether they grow
in maturity.
The questionnaire gave us insight in what the individual attitude of the
participants was regarding Green ICT and the maturity model itself. The
results of the questionnaire are quite clear: almost everyone found it a useful
(and efficient) way to get an overview on where their organisation stands and
quickly generate ideas for improvement. Furthermore, they increased their
own awareness, learned more about the possibilities of Green ICT (beyond
actions in the datacenter and also apply ICT as an environmental solution
in business processes), and two third actually planned to apply Green ICT
principles in their daily work. Even though this is a field study with limited
participants, the general attitude is highly positive and seems a good indication
of the positive effects the use of such a maturity model can have.
We did not facilitate a benchmark or a joint session with all participating
organisations. Yet, because the use of the model is standardised, comparisons
can be made easily; both on scores as well as ideas for improvement. So
we envision the possibility to use the maturity model as a benchmark tool to
compare multiple organisations. It could be especially effective to identify best
practices in this way and stimulate organisations to exchange these amongst
themselves.
Based on the experiences with and the results of the four organisations
we can therefore conclude that the SGIMM does what it is designed for these
organisations: it gives suggestions for improvement on both the problem and
104 A. Hankel et al.

the solution side of ICT and it can be used to address the needs of the ICT
managers. Next to the direct results of the maturity scan, we also looked at
whether the SGIMM could identify potential bottlenecks for further adoption
of Green ICT.
The issues and solutions that participants talked about in the evaluation
sessions were quite similar for the four organisations. In each case there
was someone who was giving good examples on how to procure more
environmentally friendly or dispose of equipment properly. However, their
methods were not formalised in policies and enforced and therefore for-
malising individual methods into policies was a common suggestion for
improvement. Similarly, communicating about what is already there, from
policy documents to good practices was also a popular action to follow-up
with. Especially in the ‘Greening of ICT’ domain, reduction possibilities
were in place, but not taken advantage of by users. The same goes for
ICT facilities such as videoconferencing to reduce traveling. Promotion of
and communication about these solutions is a key activity for all partic-
ipants (to different degrees). Since these are typical signs of bottom-up
enthusiasm, the reverse may also be true that the main issue behind the
above observations is a lack of top-down support. This was also sometimes
mentioned in the discussions, especially related to Green ICT Strategy:
with a strong and clear strategy it would become much easier to take the
next step.
Looking at the individual organisations we saw that at organisation A the
enthusiasm is there but there is hardly any sense of urgency or importance.
We suspect that it will be difficult for them to move beyond the individual ad
hoc level, even though many actions could be taken in practice. Organisation
B was clearly the most mature with good support from the board. There
was a lack of policies on Green ICT as well as a lack of awareness outside
the ICT department that made the progress feel fragile. In organisation C
sustainability was not a priority which made it difficult to get things done.
It would make sense for them to focus on their readiness to adopt Green
ICT rather than take Green ICT actions. And finally, for organisation D
Green ICT was clearly new and they wanted to use the maturity model as a
starting point.
As we have seen, the results of the maturity scan can certainly be used
to identify potential bottlenecks. This may not be evident from the results
directly but combined with another framework such as the G-readiness model
by Molla [19] it is possible to highlight problem areas for further adoption of
Green ICT.
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 105

For future work, we will consider following the participating organisations

over a longer period of time to see if they actually follow-up on the results
of their maturity scan. It would be interesting to see whether they would
write an action plan and carry out improvement actions. After a year or
so, the organisation can then repeat the maturity scan to see where they
stand compared to the year before. Such a comparison would give insight
in whether the use of the model is actually effective in improving the maturity
and therefore the greenness of an organisation. Furthermore, we can also see
whether the potential bottlenecks that we identified have become reality.

7 Conclusion
The work described in this study focused on making Green ICT more practical
for organisations as well as identify potential bottlenecks for the adoption of
Green ICT. Often organisations know they need to make their data center
more energy efficient by turning up the heat or thinking carefully about how
they cool their equipment but they do not look beyond the data center. For
Green ICT to be truly effective, organisations need to know how they can both
reduce the environmental footprint of their ICT equipment as well as how to
use their ICT equipment to help reduce the footprint of their other business
activities. The SURF Green ICT Maturity Model is designed to address exact
this issue.
We wanted to know whether the SGIMM does in practice what it is
designed for. We illustrated this through a field study that followed four
organisations which used to maturity model to gain insight in where they
stand as well as to get inspired to take action. By using the model not only to
get an overall impression of the maturity model Green ICT, but also to discuss
the results with participants in an evaluation session, the value of the maturity
model was clear to the participants. Both individuals and organisations as
a whole, were very positive on the use of the maturity model. It increased
awareness, inspired to take action and was insightful. A model such as the
SGIMM can be used to benchmark amongst organisations, and become a
standard way of measuring and addressing Green ICT.
We also found that the results of a maturity scan can be used to identify
potential bottlenecks for the adoption of Green ICT. By combining the
SGIMM with the G-readiness model [19] it was possible to see whether
organisations were ready in terms of attitude, policy, practice, technology and
governance.
106 A. Hankel et al.

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Biographies

A. Hankel is product manager and project manager at SURFnet, the Dutch

National Research and Education Network, and worked on sustainability
projects since 2009. These projects range from auditing the energy use of the
SURFnet network and office; publishing white papers and guides on Green
ICT; to stimulating Green ICT communities. In 2012 he joined the GÉANT
108 A. Hankel et al.

Green Team where he collaborates on Green ICT projects with other NRENs in
Europe. Albert started working at SURFnet in 2007 after obtaining his Master
of Science degree in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Groningen.
He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the VU University Amsterdam on Green
ICT and how organisations can make use of Green ICT. In his research he
developed the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model which is designed in such
a way that organisations can efficiently assess their current use of Green ICT
and generate suggestions for improvements.

G. Heimeriks is Assistant Professor at the Department of Innovation Studies,

Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University. An interdisciplinary academic by
choice, Heimeriks’ efforts focus on understanding the complex dynamics
arising from the co-evolution of knowledge, economy and societal institutions.
He has many years of experience as a researcher and policy adviser on science,
technology and innovation. A common theme in his work is the understanding
and governance of scientific, technological and social change in the knowledge
society. He has published on topics such as the evolution of knowledge, fore-
sight, ICT methodologies, indicators, new modes of knowledge production and
research policy. Gaston Heimeriks has a background in biochemistry (M.Sc.)
and in science and technology studies (M.A.) He previously worked as a
researcher at the University of Amsterdam and the Dutch Royal Academy
of Sciences on European projects dealing with the influence of ICT on
the development of the science-technology-economy system. His research
resulted in a Ph.D. at the University ofAmsterdam in 2005. Gaston also worked
at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) in Seville, one of
the seven scientific institutes of the European Commission’s Joint Research
Centre, for the Dutch Advisory Council for Science and Technology Policy
(AWT) and as a senior researcher at STePS Twente.
 Green ICT Assessment for Organisations 109

P. Lago is professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands,

where she leads the Software and Services research group in the Computer
Science Department. Her passion in research is to create software engineering
knowledge that makes software better, smarter, and more sustainable. Her
philosophy is that research should be industrial-relevant and serve the final
purpose of being applied in practice. To this end, her research specifically
focuses on the ‘real’ needs of practice by establishing collaboration with
partners from both private and public sectors. She has a Ph.D. in Control and
Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Torino and a Master in Computer
Science from the University of Pisa, both in Italy. She is member of the Steering
Committees of IEEE/IFIP ICSA, ECSA and the ICT4S conference series,
member of the IFIP 2.10 Working group on Software Architecture, the IFIP
2.14 Working group on Services-based Systems, and the Dutch Knowledge
Network on Green Software. She has published in all major conferences
and journals of her field. Her research and teaching are about software
architecture, software design and modeling, software quality assessment and
software sustainability. She is initiator and coordinator of the Computer
Science Master Track in Software Engineering and Green IT. She co-founded
the Green Lab, a place where researchers, students and companies collaborate
to measure the energy footprint of software solutions. More information online
at www.cs.vu.nl/patricia and www.s2group.cs.vu.nl.
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