Information Systems for a Green Organisation

Abstract

Green ICT is the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment. It is a new and rapidly evolving discipline with new terminologies, experimental results, regulatory restrictions and policy recommendations from scientists, ICT organizations and governments. Organizations need to monitor their practices and ICT usage carefully in order to formulate effective policies, control processes and manage content based on sound architectures. Green ICT contains a high level of complexity because of uncertainty of processes, data quality and reliability. It is also beset by dissent and debate that engulfs wider disciplines such as technology itself, sociology, ethics and law – all of which reflects into the amalgamation of wide ranging data. The success or failure of Green ICT policies is determined by the way an organisation manages the participation and social interactions of its employees and customers. A green organization works on enhancing the data and information management within the organization that revolves around information systems, their databases and their applications. This chapter takes cognizance of the overall complexity of the field and aims to bring to the fore formal, research-based approaches to the use of data and information in the domain of Green ICT to enable organizations to change in a systematic, controlled and measured manner through information portals based on ontologies. The ontological considerations include user perspectives on green ICT, actual use of information in greening an organization, and dispersal of knowledge not only within the organization but also across the industry.