The 2022 global risk report published by the World Economic Forum reports some disearning facts, climate action failure is the numer on risk over the next decade.

The effects can be seen all over planet earth, in forms of extreme heat, wildfire, cold, massive precipitation, drought. Climate change has an impact on all of us. It is a global issue that we all need to work on to solve. GHG emissions are more than 50% higher than what it was in year 1990. Humanity needs to urgently transition into sustainable ways of living where we stay within the means and constraints of Earth.

The primary drivers of climate change are human emissions of Co2 and other GHGs, overpopulation, increased loss of biodiversity, the overage of finite earth metals and increased waste management, especially within electronic waste (e-waste). It can be argued that the key fundamental issues is not the exact quantity, but the solutions we need to put in place to decline the growing trend in the coming year.

As we have already started to operate outside the planetary boundaries (O.G Rockström, 2021) (see youtube link at the bottom), we need to work towards finding exponential solutions that can halve our GHG emissions by 2030. The simple rule of thumb, called the Carbon Law, suggests that to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, we need to halve global carbon dioxide emissions every decade. This concept was introduced to provide a clear and actionable pathway to achieving the goals set by the Paris Agreement on climate change. The Carbon Law underscores the urgency of rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The Carbon Law, is based on Moore’s Law in the computer industry, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles roughly every two years. The Carbon Law is built on a similar principle, to halve CO2 emissions every decade from 2020 to 2050 to eventually ramp down emissions to zero. The simple rule of thumb, caleld the Carbon Law (J. Rockström, 2017). applied to everyone, including companies, cities, nations and citizens. The estimated yearly level for 2020 is 59 billion tons of GHG emissions (Carbon Disclosure Project, n.d). The Carbon Law is necessary for halving our global GHG emissions every decade. By 2030, close to 30 billion tons of GHG need to be reduced and captured from emissions into the the atmosphere (J. Rockström 2017).

What is Sustainable IT?

Sustanability in IT simply pertains to anything a company use internally to run the enterprise, such as owning data centers, managing cloud providers, developing software, manging the life cycle of hardware, optimizing energy consumption or managing your e-waste.

Sustainability by IT is what you as a company develop for internal use and commerrcial use by your customers by providing a product or solution that targets a specific sustainability need. The use cases are endless but i've gathered some examples provided in research and the book Sustainbility for IT leaders.

1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which was chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, released a report defining the concept of sustainable development and emphasizing that development must not only meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, but must also integrate environmental protection and economic growth.

Sustainable IT has been at the center of numerous international discussions and agreements, most notably the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to address global challenges such as poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, and peace and justice.

How can I lift the importance of sustainable IT where I am?

Why should anyone care? Raising the importance of sustainable IT where you are can be a multi-facated effort involving anything from awareness, education and actionable strategies baked in to the business. Here are some small steps:

Host workshops and seminars

Organizing event is not only educational for others, I have found it to be the best source of teaching myself. Exchanging knowledge can broaden your perspective while also challenging yourself. If you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself, invite an expert on the subject and make she/he talk about energy-efficient technologies, waste reduction in IT, and the environmental impacts of digital infrastructure.

Promote green Initiatives

Data speaks loader than words, propose clear facts on to why it would be beneficial to adopt energy-sufficient servers (serverless).

Something on my to-do-list is for sure organizing a community

Organize regular meetups for IT professionals to share insights, strategies, and technologies that support sustainability. Sharing war-stories, success stories or hypotheses is a great way to open up for driving change. I wish I had the time to do this some day, or maybe join someone elses.