Delphi Study Influence of Environmental Sustainability Initiatives on Information Systems

Delphi Study: Influence of Environmental Sustainability Initiatives on Information Systems

Table of Contents (first draft)

Green IT

Current Methods and Solutions

Green IT and energy costs

Green It and Email Systems

Green IT and ICT

Green IT and ESS

Green IT and TPS

Green IT and DSS

Green IT and other support systems

Green IT and GHG reduction

Green IT and the Government Sector

Green IT and the Corporate Sector

Future Prospects of Green IT in the software industry

The paper focuses on how the implementation of 'Green' IT incentives can help an organization succeed as well as manage or increase the overall efficacy of energy costs. Hence, the primary focal topic for this study will be energy cost reduction using numerous 'green' IT strategies. The paper will thus look into how the inclusion of new and advanced software can help assist a company or desist it. The paper will thus include various aspects like the legislation on Green House Gas (GHG) and energy cost reductions in both the government and corporate sector as well as discuss how IT or software development can help companies in the future when dealing with energy cost reduction strategies.

The purpose of the study hence is not to research how new and modern software designs can assist organization. This requires further research because of the simple fact that while the governmental and corporate efforts are meant to further business activities, their impact on the community cannot go unchecked; while the new software can help the company achieve their corporate goals, they need to reduce their energy costs in order to initiate sustainable solutions. Hence, the main focus of this paper will be how the companies are able to utilize the Green IT structures to reduce their overall energy costs to attain successful sustainable solutions.

The purpose of this social research study is to understand and highlight the various energy cost reducing IT initiatives and sustainability solutions that currently exist. The solutions focused on in this paper will be those that can purely assist the modern corporate organizations and government entities within the Unites States to attain a balance between attaining the business objectives and becoming energy cost efficient. At this stage in the research, the green IT or environmentally supportive IT structures that will be included here are those that can help the organizations complete majority of the work with minimal time effort. The research, which first pointed out the need for this approach, and will be used extensively for support in this study, was the one conducted by IBM in 2010. Other significant and supporting studies include: Molla, 2009; Prattipati, 2010; Shah and McAninch (2010) amongst others. The addition that this study will make to the overall existing knowledge on the topic is that it will bring forth those strategies that will help numerous modern organizations avoid the standard mistakes that are made when applying modern green technology. The study will thus help organizations understand the different sectors where they can create opportunities of implementation while taking necessary precautions and simultaneously fulfilling their organizational objectives.

This paper will present literature review starting off by discussing the Green IT structure as it stands in the current society as well as its overall contribution in coordination with energy cost reductions, Green House Gas Emission Reduction, email systems, ESS, TPS and DSS. The last three aspects will remain the focal aspects for the paper.

Green Infrastructure

Green infrastructure is defined as the multi-functional network of 'greenspaces' and inter-connecting green corridors in urban areas, the countryside in and around towns and rural settlements, and in the wider countryside. Green infrastructure is a natural life support system providing benefits for people and wildlife. It encompasses 'natural greenspaces' (colonised by plants and animals and dominated by natural processes) and man-made 'managed greenspaces' (urban parks and designed historic landscapes), as well as their many connections (footpaths, cycleways, green corridors and waterways). The provision of publicly accessible natural greenspace is a vital component in securing benefits for communities where this can be balanced with the needs of private landowners and biodiversity conservation objectives. There are a wide range of functions that green infrastructure can provide. These include:

• Active recreation, passive recreation and quiet enjoyment

• Sustainable transport and public rights of way

• Network, links and gateways

• Social venue/meeting place

• Cultural/event venue

• Education and training

• Heritage preservation

• Landscape and townscape structure

• Wildlife habitat and biodiversity

• Sustainable water and flood risk management, energy use and production and waste management

• Green produce and food production

• Integration of new and existing communities

• Shared experience of greenspace creation

Green infrastructure has a key role to play in improving the quality of life for communities throughout Greater Norwich. Investment in green infrastructure can provide important social, economic and environmental benefits, such as providing a high quality environment for businesses, addressing social deprivation issues and improving the health of local communities.

Green IT

You can barely move at the moment without being urged to make green changes to your lifestyle. And, at one level, doing so is very straightforward. It's relatively easy to cut travel, recycle your newspapers and glass or take a shower instead of a bath. And, indeed, the accumulated environmental impact of such actions is considerable. But, while these choices may be second nature to you as an individual, research conducted by Freeform Dynamics among almost 1,500 information professionals worldwide suggests that few organizations are motivated by green issues for their own sake.

When the benefits of changing to greener products or systems are expressed in terms of money, risk or brand, organizations start to sit up and take notice. The IT community -- as well as the rest of the world -- is becoming increasingly aware of the need for sustainable development that 'meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. That quote comes from the first major report on the subject, 'Our Common Future', which was published by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 (often referred to as the Brundtland Report; see the link in Part V).

Current Methods and Solutions

Balancing the Benefits and Costs of Going Green

The reach of IT is wide, from a hand-held device such as a BlackBerry to a data centre; from office printers to building management. And every element provides an opportunity to reduce environmental harm. Sometimes the benefits accrue immediately and sometimes they take longer. Sometimes you need to change behavior and at other times you need a change in procurement or operational systems.

The trick is to balance any negative consequences of making changes against the practical benefits to the organization. Think about installing a wind turbine on an urban bungalow roof. Would the energy savings ever compensate for the environmental consequences of its manufacture?

Air Smiles: Transportation

If your business naturally involves a lot of air or road travel then you can achieve immediate savings and lessen your impact on the environment by trying to take fewer journeys and using electronic communication instead. Videoconferencing doesn't have to cost a fortune and it can repay its cost with the savings in long distance flights and hotel stays very quickly. It won't replace all face-to-face situations but videoconferencing is especially effective in smaller meetings of up to about 12 people, when the participants already know each other. Once installed, you can use it for those ad hoc meetings that oil the organizational wheels but would never be considered if travel were required. The same goes for the lower-tech, but no less useful, web meetings and webinars, where people can share content and interact with each other through their webcams and PC screens.

If home working or flexible working is possible, you can reduce the emissions associated with the daily commute and give staff a better lifestyle. Such flexibility tends to result in staff who are more content with their work-life balance (as home-working often fits in well around family life) and, as a consequence, tend to stay longer in their posts as well as being more productive.

Companies have found that they can cut desks, and therefore office space, heating, lighting, power and so on, when significant numbers of staff work away from the office for at least three days a week.

The whole idea of replacing physical movement with electronic communications like videoconferencing reduces environmental impacts, not to mention associated costs. This also applies to how you manage your business processes. Consider distributing information electronically rather than printing it first and then distributing it. This 'print on demand' approach saves transport and unnecessary copies, not to mention saving money!

Companies with transport and logistics operations can reduce emissions by using software applications to optimize routes and eliminate wasted journeys. Solutions can range from simple sat-nav devices to more complex transportation management systems which coordinate multiple vehicles and routes, saving both time and fuel, and providing more predictable customer service too.

Green IT and energy costs

Although IT devices consume energy, you can use them to control energy, particularly electricity consumption.

You can use IT systems to take care of building management. For example, using movement sensors, thermostats can be adjusted, lights switched on and off, and computers switched off out of hours and reawakened for software upgrades.

One of the biggest challenges in reducing electricity consumption is ensuring that electricity users can monitor their own consumption. What gets measured gets managed -- once people are aware of their consumption, they can go about reducing it. This isn't yet common practice, even in data centers. But, with new smart metering technologies, organizations could monitor the electricity usage of individual departments. Departments could be charged for usage, giving them a clear incentive to reduce their consumption and the ability to see the benefits of energy-saving initiatives straight away.

Increasingly, organizations are asked by governments and other stakeholders to disclose the amount of energy that they use -- and therefore the associated CO2 emissions. IT systems can play a role in enabling organizations to measure and report those emissions. IT systems also enable a greater exchange of environmental information up and down the supply chain.

Taking Bigger Strides

You don't have to be an office-based business to apply technology to greening your activities. Remote monitoring sensors, for example, make it possible to keep an electronic eye on remote locations such as farmland, storage tanks and reservoirs, reducing the need to travel there to take readings. Many industries already use these capabilities to monitor tunnels and pipelines all over the world. Even drinks dispensers can be hooked up, ensuring that no service or refill journeys are wasted trips.

Implementing Practical Steps

When Freeform Dynamics asked almost 1,500 IT professionals to compare their own attitudes to the environment with their companies', the results showed that staff tended to be ahead of their employer in their concerns. Over 50 per cent of respondents thought that it could do more for the environment. Any company deciding to take green steps, even if for commercial reasons, will find themselves pushing against a largely open door when it comes to securing support from staff.

The easiest place for organizations to start is where no measurement or groundwork is required, but simply a change in behavior. The following lists of tips and suggested actions are roughly in order of cost and effort. The environmental impact will vary according to the nature of your organization. A focus on print reduction won't amount to much for an online software publisher, for example, which prints hardly anything.

Energy Conservation: A Possible Alterative?

The Green movement is gaining momentum in financial services, but executives are finding that it's far easier to cut off the financing of dirty industries like coal-fired power plants than it is to get their own houses in order-even when major cost savings beckon. BY GREG GOTH

Lorie Wigle, the general manager of eco-technology at Intel, laughs when she is asked if there are enough computer industry executives with "eco" or "green" in their title these days to make up a whole new peer group.

But "going green" is no laughing matter, either for the technology industry or its financial customers. The green movement is gaining momentum in some corners of the financial industry. Earlier this year, three of the largest U.S. financial firms-Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley -- and several large power companies developed "The Carbon Principles," with the objective to make it more difficult for new U.S. coal-fired power plants to secure financing. The Rain Forest Action Network's Global Finance campaign pressed many of the world's largest banks-Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi and JPMorgan Chase, among others-to "fund the future" by agreeing to lending principles that protect the environment RAM's campaign took effort, but convinced institutions to adopt green lending practices. Still, refusing to lend to "dirty" industries is one thing; making a commitment to clean up one's own act is even harder.

This raises the obvious question: How green is your bank's house? For better or worse, the financial industry is the bellwether of how to balance environmental concerns and business demands. The stakes are high. Missteps can cost time and money-not to mention the drastic business implications of a system slowdown. "We view them as a leading indicator for the rest of the marketplace, particularly in terms of energy efficiency. They were almost canaries in the coal mine for what started to be a big issue for a broad range of customers," Wigle says.

Gartner's Rick De Lotto, principal analyst for green IT in the financial-services industry, says IT staffs could actually be the canary's canary, already well involved in the process of reducing energy use. Hence, they occupy an important strategic position within their organizations for how to proceed with green initiatives. "The IT guys were already in crisis mode because energy prices were spiking," he says. "This is a chance for IT managers to really leverage their experience and get a place at the table."

Last fall, De Lotto wrote in a research report that "in many cases, the IT department will be a firm's only internal pool of any type of engineering talent This will make the IT department a natural test bed for new technology ideas and business practices."

The state-of-the-art designation when it comes to facilities/data center cross-pollination is the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. Citigroup is building a LEED-certified data center in Frankfurt, Germany, scheduled to open in June, that will use 25% less energy than a comparable data center. Citi says the 16,000 megawatt hours saved annually are enough to power 3,000 single-family homes. "We're still early in the process as an industry," says Michelle Erickson, director of Citigroup's global sustainable IT program. "At this point, you can still make a case for a return reasonably quickly for most of the activities taking place."

Other U.S. banks have set explicit goals to reduce their own energy consumption. Bank of America has stated "aggressive, voluntary goals" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the company by nine percent in the next year. Wachovia aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 10% in two years. "We're looking anywhere we can to reduce that, looking at ways of reducing power usage any way we can," says Jason Nash, senior platform and data-center architect for Wachovia's corporate and investment banking division.

Most banks' short-term internal green initiatives seem to be meat-and-potatoes solutions like data center and server consolidation and virtualization. First National Bank of Omaha, for example, saved almost $2 million annually after it moved computer resources on 30 Unix servers and 560 Windows servers onto a single IBM System z mainframe.

De Lotto says even more energy reduction is possible at the desktop. "Modifications and enhancements to data centers [especially related to cooling issues] have received most media attention because they are power inefficient and are big and easy to see," he wrote in his report, "Green IT: The Future is Now." "However, the area where the greatest overall effect can be made the fastest is at the desktop and with client devices."

Wachovia architects are exploring a green approach that will combine the two: removing computers from individual workstations and putting them in the data center, then using virtualization to consolidate individual instances of operating systems and applications. "Most people do not need a physical system in the data center for themselves," Nash says. "A virtual system shared by 10 people would be fine. At night, we can roll them into a fraction of the blades they are running on in the daytime, shut them down or use them for grid applications, and then roll them back across the blades again before work starts in the morning. So we're not going to have to pay the power bill to have all the blades running all the time. We're currently looking at proof of concept on that."

Banks don't have to go all the way to desktop virtualization to cut power usage in the cubes, says Will Durr, svp of technology delivery at Waterbury, CT-based Webster Bank His institution is planning to install client power-management software sometime this year. "If we turn off our PCs 12 hours a day over the course of the year, the savings are significant," he says.

Gartner's De Lotto figures just using existing Energy Star-compliant desktop power management for monitors and computer units would save $75 per desktop per year. "Multiply that by 1,000 PCs and your CEO will be taking you to lunch," he says. "When you get right down to it, anything that cuts electrical usage is a good thing. And it's going to be years before they figure out the right way to get data centers set up. Right now, there's no telling where the breakthrough will come technically. So it's 10 yards and a cloud of dust. Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind. Don't forget the low-hanging fruit. Don't spend $1 million upgrading your heating system until every light in your data center turns off when the last person leaves the room."

After the low-hanging fruit is plucked, the next step takes engineering ingenuity. Creative IT executives are beginning to work closely with facilities staffs to craft more holistic energy-efficient policies -- and getting vendors involved in the planning. "We're looking at various ways to add cooling to a data center and how to take advantage of that elsewhere," says Durr. "For example, if we're adding new data-center AC capabilities, can we take the resulting warm air and maybe heat some of that facility? I don't think there's any IT sales rep out there knocking on my facilities department, or anybody saying, 'I think I can help you from this perspective," he says. "It's usually a partnership where IT brings them to the table, and facilities happens to be there, and we can start a conversation."

Green planners must weed through the bewildering array of technologies and processes that bear false promises while facing the pressure to make fast, effective decisions. In some cases, new technologies meant to conserve electrical power and computer and network resources are still in their birthing pangs.

In others, the impartial informational and educational infrastructure that would help these people make better "green" decisions is sorely lacking. "I don't think the information is easily available " Durr says. "When you do your homework, you can find the information, but you really have to do your homework."

De Lotto estimates that financial companies will be driven by their stakeholders to formally adopt environmentally sustainable IT operations and strategies by 2012. If those policies are enforced by the immutable laws of global resource scarcity, then executive-level planning should begin now. "Distribution and sourcing-related energy scarcity will begin to limit data-center and backup-site selection by 2012," he wrote. Tighter regulations will emerge regarding energy use and load shedding, and rolling blackouts and brownouts may be imposed. Serious rethinking about data- center design and operations, as well as core-processing-system design based on cooling and energy-use reduction issues, should begin no later than mid-year 2008."

Industry players must temper urgency with caution. He says "greenwash," the term used to define inflated and unsubstantiated claims of a product's green bona fides, "is everywhere and almost anything can be spun as being an improvement. It's going to take a lot of due diligence, a lot of point-by-point, tedious comparisons."

Prudent as that strategy sounds, there just aren't enough existing authoritative resources around to assist planners, so for those charged with carrying out the new green regime separating the hype from the real deal is still a bit of a challenge. Those resources are on the way. Some are being universally awaited as viable benchmarks; others appear to offer good intentions but not enough concrete information.

A nascent industry and government effort is under way to help technology buyers evaluate new equipment and to spread best practices. The Environmental Protection Agency has two efforts well under way -- the publication of data-center efficiency guidelines and Energy Star ratings for servers -- and a third, specifications for network storage efficiency, is in its early stages. The non-profit Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. released the industry's initial server-efficiency benchmark in December.

The computing industry also recently launched numerous "green" informational umbrella organizations, including the Green Grid, which focuses on advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems (www.thegreengrid.org), and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which is targeting power-supply efficiency (www.climatesaverscomputing.org).

But information-either technology-specific or that geared toward vertical industries-is still hard to obtain. "If those consortia could deliver more specific information, that could only be of value to those seeking to find the right route," says Tom Beese, CEO of ClearSpeed, a London manufacturer of chip-based acceleration parallel coprocessors.

Webster's IT staff does some evaluation themselves, and relies on the veracity of its vendors for some other elements hrough the maze of information. "They know if they don't deliver, we won't return " Durr says.

Intel's Wigle, who is also the president of Climate Savers, says the company is taking customers' clamor for third-party resources very seriously, but also says setting benchmarks is a daunting challenge. 'We're working closely with our customers as well as with the EPA," she says, "but setting Energy Star for servers is a fairly difficult process. Servers are used in so many different ways."

Wachovia's Nash says the lack of a trusted third-party resource on energy efficiency results in time-consuming and costly evaluation. Typical vendor information will tell an IT executive about power consumption at maximum load, Nash says, but that's not enough. "That does not tell us what it would be with a certain configuration in our environment, so we are still left to do individual testing in a climate like that," he says. "Right now, each organization takes it upon themselves to do that, and it's an ad hoc process, started and stopped each time they go through the cycle of evaluating new equipment. So third-party data is a big deal for us."

Like the EPA, the industry consortia are also working on more technical and vertical information. There are no hard estimates when that might be available. Enough customers are demanding more concrete numbers that vendors are jumpstarting the process. Those involved in consortia are also optimistic about soon having more comprehensive resources. Given financial services' role as an early adopter, the sector will likely reap the earliest vertical information.

But a CIO making long-term plans and budget decisions can't wait for vendors or industry groups to get their facts together. Institutions should make an effort to move the evaluation process from ad hoc to coordinated. Erickson says creating a cross-enterprise and hierarchical communication channel is vital to seed firm-wide green strategy and implementation. Citi created a CIO council, staffed by executives from IT, infrastructure, architecture and engineering, business, and risk management divisions. The council, in turn, created a team responsible for collecting information, recruiting staff for exploratory groups, finding support for initiatives within their organizations and reporting back. "Look at everything happening in the organization already" she says, "whether it's IT or not and whether it's labeled as 'green' or not."

Green It and Email Systems

The diffusion of the Internet as a mainstream communication medium and 'info-structure' for business transactions has generated a wide range of strategic implications, in particular for the tourism industry (Buhalis, 2004). The rapid expansion of online players has caused traditional indirect distribution channels through intermediaries to decline (Tsai, Wang & Lin, 2005). This factor, together with capping airlines' fees and growing industry consolidation, challenges the sustainability of traditional travel agents and tour operators which are forced to build new business models and operative processes.

In this endeavor, ICT can be a powerful enabler. However, innovation projects based on the introduction of new technology systems can lack a holistic perspective which includes ICT and strategy alignment, change management, and business process redesign. An excessive focus on systems may lead to underestimating the individual and organizational readiness to change, and the importance of designing processes which take full advantage of new technology. Beside organizational factors, sensible differences in the degree of success may derive from the market and geographic context where companies operate.

The successful introduction of technology within organizations is a multifaceted issue and involves undertaking changes beyond the installation of a platform or system. In fact, the strong integration among structural and cultural aspects is a distinguishing feature of companies that use ICT most extensively and productively. The increased use of ICT is associated with higher productivity and innovation potential if a distinct set of organizational practices is also in place (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2002), such as a policy of open information access and communication, and other factors influencing the extent to which the organization can succeed. Readiness to change is involved with the beliefs, attitude, and intentions of people related to the perceived need and likeliness of success. Research on individual readiness in human resource development and management has primarily emerged in the past fifteen years (Armenakis, Harris & Mossholder, 1993; Bernerth, 2004).

Beside willingness and preparation of people, the evaluation of priorities in terms of process/organizational focus is another key point to evaluate, also based on difficulties, risks, and stakeholders' support. Business reengineering is often seen as a transformation-oriented rather than a process-focused initiative (Davenport & Stoddard, 1994) and this may lead to an inadequate recognition of interdependencies among processes, technology, and strategy. Indeed, however beneficial a new technology or system may appear in isolation, it is necessary to evaluate in advance how it interacts with other aspects of the organization. Different techniques exist to visualize 'scenarios' of change and many of these approaches are based on brainstorming and creative techniques such as out-of-the-box thinking. The problem is that the creative exploration of alternatives is not always accompanied by a systematic analysis of interactions. In fact, the successful implementation of change is facilitated when an organization's culture, systems, and structures support and reinforce the new vision, objectives, and behaviors. Based on previous contributions (Hauser & Clausing, 1988; Milgrom & Roberts, 1995), the 'Matrix of Change' methodology (Brynjolfsson, Renshaw & Van Alstyne, 1997) was introduced to contribute a new angle in the sense that it helps analyze the complex dynamics of change and address issues such as organizational requirements, feasibility and sequence of changes proposed, and stakeholders' evaluation and support.

Different contributions in business engineering and process redesign fields (Osterle, 1995; Venkatraman, 1994) focus on the key role of business processes to implement ICTenabled innovation. Concerning the generation of new process models, a body of methodologies, techniques and tools has emerged in the last fifteen years (Davenport & Short, 1999; Hammer & Champy, 1993; Kettinger, Teng & Guha, 1997; Rajala, Savolainen & Jagdev, 1997). Many methods focus on identifying, analyzing and measuring current processes as a first step towards the definition of a new prototype. However, process innovation may result in only incremental improvements when redesign techniques are too oriented towards modeling the 'as is' rather than defining new models. The lack of systematic exploration of alternatives may lead to simply refining existing processes rather than radically change them. The logic derived from the 'coordination theory' and the methods operationalized in the MIT Process Handbook represent an interesting evolution. The MIT Process Handbook is a large online repository of process knowledge coupled with a redesign methodology based on concepts such as process specializations, dependencies and coordinating mechanisms (Malone, Crowston & Herman, 2003). The handbook-based redesign methodology (Klein & Petti, 2006) uses those concepts to generate innovative and robust process models, also based on a taxonomy of cost, dimension and value-oriented process metrics (Margherita, Klein & Elia, 2007) which support the evaluation of trade-offs and the comparison of redesign alternatives.

Beside the analysis of readiness, change strategy and process redesign, the implementation of change should also be based on the identification of facilitators at technology and organizational levels. Indeed, the simple use of ICT is rarely sufficient to cause process changes and a combination of enablers is required. The role of organizational facilitators and a twofold perspective of technology and organizational enablers in business process reengineering have been previously analysed (Ahadi, 2004; Grover, Teng & Fiedler, 1995).

Other interdisciplinary fields of literature have analyzed the phenomenon of innovation adoption and its impacts at the organizational level. Innovation programs often lack a holistic perspective which includes IT and strategy alignment, change management, inter-organizational communications, corporate innovation and business process change (Galliers & Baets, 1998). A critical aspect is to understand the central role played by individual actors, their institutional context, and the processes they enact in adopting and using technologies (Orlikowsky, 1993). A stakeholder agency theory has been proposed (Hill & Jones, 1992) to analyze the role of management as related to different organizational stakeholders and the forms of 'discourse' arising among actors, Information System (IS) development and organizational transformation methods.

A core assumption is that organizational needs and expectations of people should be consistently embedded when evaluating the stability of current and desired systems. At this proposal, the role of ICT professionals has been investigated as positioned in an organization to broker organizational knowledge (Pawlowsky et al., 2004) whereas the ICT user is a social actor which assumes complex and multiple roles while adopting, adapting and using IS. The presence of inter-organizational dependencies and network effects renders the decision to adopt innovation influenced also by the institutional environment of the organization, beside purely internal and technological criteria (Crowston & Myers, 2004; King et al., 1994; Teo, Wei & Benbasat, 2003). Institutional theory has been used to describe, explain and understand the commitments of social actors and management championship in the development of web-based IS (Butler, 2003; Chatterjee, Grewal & Sambamurthy, 2002).

When you rely on technology to get work done, as in large, global, distributed information systems projects, collaboration is going to break down at some point during the process. The basis for this breakdown can usually be traced to people and technology. When this happens, many project managers and team members in other leadership positions use technology facilitation to improve their team's collaboration; that is, they take actions to enable their team's more effective use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Technology facilitation has been an important, yet neglected topic for many years [7] about which we know little. Still, its importance seems to have increased as work has become increasingly computer-mediated. Whether involved in virtual teams focused on global, distributed projects or not, most knowledge workers currently spend most of their time working virtually through the ICTs, but do not take advantage of the benefits available -- a key area for productivity improvement [2] that technology facilitation addresses.

These ICTs, from email and fax to complex collaborative integrated development environments and group decision support tools, can enhance teamwork performance, but convincing team members to use them effectively remains an ongoing challenge [3]. The fact that productivity using ICTs suffers even when collocated, suggests that the additional communication challenges imposed by virtuality, global distribution of teammates, and co-work on projects involving substantial task interdependence will heighten the difficulty of collaboration and need for specific, efficient intervention techniques for resurrecting interaction when it fails.

Here, we report findings of a study that addresses this need by isolating how virtual team (VT) leaders in the IS industry persuade their teams to effectively use ICTs through technology facilitation during team interaction. We know of no prior field study examining this topic.

We captured the moments of interaction breakdown and what was done to fix them in order to analyze their elements and isolate the specific technology/ICT interventions/changes that leaders were making. To do so, we applied critical incident technique (CIT) interview methodology -- a practice applied in thousands of studies in the field of industrial and organizational psychology, but rarely used in IS research [4]. It enables a focused and in-depth capture of intact job behavior and its context [1, 5].

We conducted CIT interviews with 13 practicing VT leaders or project managers with experience in more than 20 organizations including more than half of the top outsourcing firms according to Information W. eek [6] to collect 510 pages of transcribed data in this study [8]. The intervie wees were selected for their high performance and they had an average of five years experience leading virtual teams. They reported successful and unsuccessful technology facilitation critical incidents from 30 IS projects. These incidents were occasions when the leaders took action to improve the use of ICTs within their teams and the leader could point to a demonstrable impact on team use that led to definite positive or negative changes in team effectiveness.

The questions in these interviews were guided by an adaptive structuration theory (AST) framework that helped specify the general areas for questioning. AST explains how groups come to appropriate changes. Our focus was on changes related to ICTs and their features, but they may be related to team members' roles or behaviors. Changes might also r elate to task methodologies. Changing one thing, such as ICT, in an intervention may require changing others simultaneously, and changing one may lead to a need to change another later. As a result, understanding the technology interventions leaders made required a carefully constructed and pilot-tested, two-hour interview protocol that tapped all of these areas and possibilities The leader in the facilitations sensed an opportunity to improve collaboration by changing the way the team members were using ICTs and then took one or more actions to make changes. We report best practices for technology facilitation found in this study. To be sure, we also found that high-performance VT leaders do not always follow these best practices, often resulting in failure. We would expect more problems with lower-performing or less experienced VT leaders.

Green IT and ICT

The telecom industry has both large and small steps to take in promoting greater sustainability, but one of the most important is to educate government policy makers on the role that the information and communications technologies (ICT) industry can play in helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions for everyone, the ATIS Report on Environmental Sustainability released this week concluded.

The ATIS Exploratory Group on Green was charged with determining how ATIS and its members can be "greener" in their operations but quickly concluded that "green" is a marketing term and the more important matter to focus on was environmental sustainability, as defined by the United Nations, said Tim Jeffries, ATIS vice president of technology and business development.

Most, if not all, of ATIS members have their own environmental sustainability programs in place already, Jeffries said, so the main focus of EGG was to talk about ways to share best practices and to promote the use of ICT to enable other industries to reduce their carbon footprint.

"Educating policy makers is one major effort," Jeffries said. "There is a lot going on within the federal government and on the Hill in particular, and we want to make sure they understand the value and power of ICT in enabling other industries through smart logistics, smart grids and other uses of ICT."

The ATIS report advocates a "multi-pronged approach" to this, with individual companies implementing their own advocacy programs and ATIS working as an organization on education as well. "We have a technical initiative on the way now in our committee to look at energy-efficiency ratings on network equipment," Jeffries said.

Another key piece of advice from the EGG findings is that, as companies implement sustainability programs, they must remember that any successful sustainability effort has three important components, Jeffries said.

"When you look at sustainability, you have to consider three aspects, and achieve a balance among them," Jeffries said. "There are the environmental impacts to be considered, the social acceptance of the solution you would deploy, and the economic sustainability. The solutions we choose have to work for today's generation and longer term, which means they can't have adverse affects on down the road."

The reason balance is important, Jeffries said, is that any environmentally friendly solution that isn't socially acceptable is likely to face resistance and not be widely adopted, while those that aren't economically viable won't last over the long-term.

ATIS exists as a place where companies can share best practices, Jeffries said. "Each company has its own goals and will continue to pursue those, but to the extent there are best practices that can be shared, ATIS will be a collection point for these."

ATIS and the EGG committee also are working on educating the industry on the complexity of the life cycle assessment for many of the products used in the ICT industry, Jeffries said.

ICT: An Overview

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been recently identified as essential in improving communication in IT processes. One benefit of ICT is to reduce information re-entry by linking information between these processes (Bjork, 1999). IT projects require a large flow of IT documentary information between project participants during both design and implementation phases. Tam (1999) presents a prototype ICT system for use in organizations that improves communication and reduces communication costs. Other researchers have investigated the use of ICT in construction processes in design and implementation (Veeramani et al., 1998), in cost control (Abudayyeh et al., 2001) and project management (Skibniewski and Abduh, 2000). These studies of the benefits of ICT use suggest an increasing trend of ICT used by the construction industry (Futcher and Rowlinson, 1999; O'Brien and Al-Biqami, 1999; Rivard, 2000). While potential benefits of ICT use have been clearly demonstrated, the realisation of these benefits in practice is limited. One reported problem was that ICT users resist adopted corporate ICT applications (Davis and Songer, 2002). For example, a company may invest in ICT systems but staff could still be communicating via the phone and/or on paper. As a result, potential communication benefits of ICT may not be fully realized. In particular, ICT success requires a critical mass of adopters in order to the gain full communication and information exchange benefits (Markus, 1987; O'Brien, 2000). Thus, effective diffusion of ICT through organizations needs to be effectively managed to better prepare for future ICT application adoption.

In an earlier phase of this study using factor analysis on data from respondents from three Australian construction organizations, 11 ICT innovation factors were identified. The total number of respondents was 117: 35 respondents from a government construction organisation (group A); 39 respondents from a construction contractor (group B); and 43 respondents from an engineering consultant (group C). Peansupap et al. (2003) provide further details of the research methodology and results. The 11 factors are:

(1) F1: professional development and technical support.

(2) F2: clear benefits of use.

(3) F3: supporting individual characteristics.

(4) F4: supporting technology characteristics.

(5) F5: supporting supervisor and organization.

(6) F6: supporting open discussion environment.

(7) F7: supporting rewards.

(8) F8: colleagues help.

(9) F9: positive feeling towards ICT use.

(10) F10: negative feeling towards ICT use.

(11) F11: frustration with ICT use.

This paper will concentrate on the user experience of the above 11 factors in the context of innovation diffusion and change management.

Integration of innovation diffusion theory with change management

After an organization decides to adopt technological innovation, the next process is to encourage its adoption at an individual level throughout the organization. Diffusion has been defined as the process in which technological innovation and managerial innovation, have been introduced into work processes and adopted by a specific group or across the whole organization (Rogers, 1995; Green and Hevner, 2000; Bresnen and Marshall, 2001). Therefore innovation diffusion theory can be applied to explain the nature of IT adoption (Mitropoulos and Tatum, 2000) and implementation (Fichman, 1992). The number of adopters increases as the technological innovation becomes more fully diffused. Understanding technological diffusion is required to ensure successful technological innovation (Green and Hevner, 2000) because the rate of effective adoption growth can be used as a proxy measure to reflect technology introduction success. The diffusion process is complex and should also be understood so that technological limitations and constraints on adopters in the organization are well recognized (Senge et al., 1999). Figure 1 illustrates how change management and innovation diffusion affects organizational implementation of innovation initiatives. Static factors fundamentally affect initial IT diffusion whereas dynamic factors sustain IT diffusion changes. Without the dynamic factors, diffusion could not be maintained. We examined the relevant literature to better understand the two elements of dynamic and static influence.

We use the term "ICT diffusion" to define information and communication technology that has been adopted and transferred by potential users within an organisation at the implementation stage. Effective ICT diffusion success could be perceived in terms of factors that influence technology adoption and the way in which successful adoption of technology by potential users within an organization could be maintained. Rogers' (1995) innovation diffusion model describes its elements as comprising: technological characteristics; communication channels; social systems; and the diffusion rate. The innovation diffusion rate depends upon the first three factors. However, IT innovation diffusion within an organisation also requires a change management process that encourages people to adopt and use it as well as motivating people, providing appropriate training and technical support, supervisor support and open discussion to solve problems and resolve issues (Senge et al., 1999).

As the national Internet infrastructure expands and ICT operating costs decrease (e.g. Internet service cost, hardware, and software costs), the numbers of ICT users in construction firms may increase over the coming years. Research outcomes reported upon in this paper could help development of a road map to be used by construction organizations to better diffuse ICT. For example, company directors from 20 Australian small-medium construction companies revealed several problematic ICT implementation issues. These include:

* lack of an IT infrastructure;

* lack of IT staff; investment cost;

* lack of ICT business requirements;

* unclear benefits of ICT use; and * behavioural barriers (Love et al., 2001).

Therefore, these issues should be studied in more detail through identifying drivers and inhibitors of ICT innovation to fully understand how ICT technology is transferred into organizations. This is particularly relevant to the successful expansion and/or deployment of an inter-intranet infrastructure.

Results from the Peansupap et al. (2003) ICT diffusion survey indicate that users had very supportive personal characteristics and a high level of understanding of using ICT applications. Users from that study's three groups felt that their organizations have high ICT diffusion influence through having:

* an open-discussion environment;

* support from colleagues; and * support from supervisors.

However, professional development and technical support were recognized as only having a medium influence upon ICT diffusion. Respondents generally believed that any intrinsic rewards system has a low influence on their ICT application use. These 11 factors were used as the key factors to develop a semi-structured in-depth interview involving three construction contractors to validate the results of this survey.

Green IT and ESS

ecause top-level executives often require specialized support when making strategic decisions, many firms have developed systems to assist executive decision making. This type of system, called an executive support system (ESS), is a specialized DSS that includes all hardware, software, data, procedures, and people used to assist senior-level executives within the organization. In some cases, an ESS, also called an executive information system (EIS), supports the actions of members of the board of directors, who are responsible to stockholders. An ESS can also be used by individuals farther down in the organizational structure. Once targeted at the top-level executive decision makers, ESSs are now marketed to -- and used by -- employees at other levels in the organization. In the traditional view, ESSs give top executives a means of tracking critical success factors. Today, all levels of the organization share information from the same databases. However, for our discussion, we will assume ESSs remain in the upper management levels, where they indicate important corporate issues, indicate new directions the company may take, and help executives monitor the company's progress.

An ESS is a special type of DSS, and, like a DSS, an ESS is designed to support higher-level decision making in the organization. The two systems are, however, different in important ways. DSSs provide a variety of modeling and analysis tools to enable users to thoroughly analyze problems -- that is, they allow users to answer questions. Following are general characteristics of ESSs:

Tailored to individual executives. ESSs are typically tailored to individual executives; DSSs are not tailored to particular users. An ESS is an interactive, hands-on tool that allows an executive to focus, filter, and organize data and information.

Easy to use. A top-level executive's most critical resource can be his or her time. Thus, an ESS must be easy to learn and use and not overly complex.

Have drill down abilities. An ESS allows executives to drill down into the company to determine how certain data was produced. Drill down allows an executive to get more detailed information if needed.

Support the need for external data. The data needed to make effective top-level decisions is often external -- information from competitors, the federal government, trade associations and journals, consultants, and so on. An effective ESS is able to extract data useful to the decision maker from a wide variety of sources including the Internet and other electronic publishing sources such as LexisNexis.

Can help with situations that have a high degree of uncertainty. There is a high degree of uncertainty with most executive decisions. Handling these unknown situations using modeling and other ESS procedures helps top-level managers measure the amount of risk in a decision.

• Have a future orientation. Executive decisions are future oriented, meaning that decisions will have a broad impact for years or decades. The information sources to support future-oriented decision making are usually informal -- from golf partners to members of social clubs or civic organizations.

• Are linked with value-added business processes. Like other information systems, executive support systems are linked with executive decision making about value-added business processes. For instance, executive support systems can be used by car-rental firms to analyze trends. The responsibility given to top-level executives and decision makers brings unique problems and pressures to their jobs. The following is a discussion of some of the characteristics of executive decision making that are supported through the ESS approach. As you will note, most of these are related to an organization's overall profitability and direction. An effective ESS should have the capability to support executive decisions with many of these capabilities, such as strategic planning and organizing, crisis management, and more. One of the key roles of senior executives is to provide a broad vision for the entire organization. This vision includes the organization's major product lines and services, the types of businesses it supports today and in the future, and its overriding goals. ESSs also support strategic planning. Strategic planning involves determining long-term objectives by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, predicting future trends, and projecting the development of new product lines. It also involves planning the acquisition of new equipment, analyzing merger possibilities, and making difficult decisions concerning downsizing and the sale of assets if required by unfavorable economic conditions. Top-level executives are concerned with organization structure. For example, decisions concerning the creation of new departments or downsizing the labor force are made by top-level managers. Overall direction for staffing decisions and effective communication with labor unions are also major decision areas for top-level executives. ESSs can be employed to help analyze die impact of staffing decisions, potential pay raises, changes in employee benefits, and new work rules.

Green IT and TPS

For most organizations, TPSs support the routine, day-to-day activities that occur in the normal course of business that help a company add value to its products and services. Depending on the customer, value may mean lower price, better service, higher quality, or uniqueness of product. By adding a significant amount of value to their products and services, firms ensure further organizational success. Because the TPSs often perform activities related to customer contacts -- like order processing and invoicing -- these information systems play a critical role in providing value to the customer. For example, by capturing and tracking the movement of each package, shippers like Federal Express and United Parcel Service (UPS) are able to provide timely and accurate data on the exact location of a package. Shippers and receivers can access an online database and, by providing the air bill number of a package, find the package's current location. If the package has been delivered, they can see who signed for it (especially useful in large firms where packages can become lost in internal distribution systems and mailrooms). Such a system provides the basis for added value through improved customer service. When computerized transaction processing systems first evolved, only one method of processing was available. All transaction were collected in groups, called batches, and processed together. With batch processing systems, business transactions are accumulated over a period of time and prepared for processing as a single unit or batch. The time period during which transactions are accumulated is whatever length of time is needed to meet the needs of the users of that system. For example, it may be important to process invoices and customer payments for the accounts receivable system daily. On the other hand, the payroll system may receive time cards and process them biweekly to create checks and update employee earnings records as well as to distribute labour costs. Today's computer technology allows another processing method, called online, real-time, or online transaction processing (OLTP). As soon as the input is available, a computer program performs the necessary processing and updates the records affected by that reflect the current status. When you make an airline reservation, for instance, the transaction is processed and all databases, such as seat occupancy and accounts receivable, are updated immediately. This type of processing is absolutely essential for businesses that require data quickly and update it often, such as airlines, ticket agencies, and stock investment firms. Many firms have found that OLTP helps them provide faster, more efficient service -- one way to add value to their activities in the eyes of the customer. Increasingly, firms are using the Internet to perform many OLTP functions. A third type of transaction processing, called online entry with delayed processing is a compromise between batch and online processing. With this type of system, transactions are entered into the computer system when they occur, but they are not processed immediately. For example, when you call a toll-free number and order a product, your order is typically entered into the computer when you make the call. However, the order may not be processed until that evening after business hours. Even though the technology exists to run Transaction Processing Systems applications using online processing, it is not done for all applications. For many applications, batch processing is more appropriate and cost-effective. Payroll transactions and billing are typically done via batch processing. Specific goals of the organization define the method of transaction processing best suited for the various applications of the company. Because of the importance of transaction processing organizations expect their TPSs to accomplish a number of specific objectives, including the following:

The primary objective of any TPS is to capture, process, and store transactions and to produce a variety of documents related to routine business activities. These business activities can be directly or indirectly related to selling products and services to customers. Processing orders, purchasing materials, controlling inventory, billing customers, and paying supplier and employees are all business activities that result from customer orders. These activities result in transactions that are processed by the TPS. One objective of any TPS is error-free data input and processing. Even before the introduction of computer technology, employees visually inspected all documents and reports introduced into or produced by the TPS. Because humans are fallible, the transactions were often inaccurate, resulting in wasted time and effort and requiring resources to correct them. An editing program, for example, should have the ability to determine that an entry that should read "40 hours " is not entered as " 400 hours" or '4000 hours" because of a data entry error. An important component of data integrity is to avoid fraudulent transactions. E-commerce firms face this problem when accepting credit or debit card information over the Internet. How can these firms make sure that the people making the purchases are who they say they are? One approach is to use a digital certificate. A digital certificate is a small computer file that serves as both an Id card and a signature. Some believe that digital certificates, which use complex mathematical codes, are almost fraud proof.

Green IT and DSS

DSS: An Introduction

In the business environment that exists today, efficient and effective decision support is essential for accurate decision making. Decision makers do not have time to locate the necessary data or information in a data warehouse application, other data applications, or worse still an ERP system. They demand decision support tools which support them in coming up with the best alternative to problems or business requirements. In addition, these decision support tools and applications need to be open and flexible enough to not only provide support within their own organization, but also beyond the boundaries of the organization. This multi-enterprise collaboration is increasingly becoming a vital element in the decision support process because decision making should ideally have no boundaries. Decision makers within an organization should be able to span right across their entire supply network and collaborate with other decision makers in order to obtain the right information, knowledge, tools, technologies, etc. that will assist them in coming up with the best decision for their organization and even in some cases the supply network as a whole.

There are a host of applications that serve some aspects of this problem. However they are expensive, and are often provided as part of a suite of applications from a single vendor such as SAP and Oracle. There is a need for a decision making lifecycle that can be applied to any business problem or requirement. In addition, this type of lifecycle should be supported by flexible and open decision support frameworks and architectures that allow decision makers within and across organizations to leverage their supply networks and take advantage of all the tools, technologies, standards, and systems available in order to make the best choice.

Organizations and their decision making processes are increasingly becoming multi-enterprise collaborative (MEC) in nature. However, a majority of academic and commercial research, frameworks, architectures, and systems are focused towards the transaction processing aspect of multi-enterprise collaboration. More recently, vendors including Microsoft, SAP and Oracle have introduced tools and systems that support the decision support side of MEC. The shift of marketplace applications and academic research towards this area of research is still at its early stages and perspectives and insights are continually being gained as new applications and implementations are rolled out.

Decision makers within organizations and across supply networks need the ability to utilize decision making components (e.g., data, models, solvers and data and process visualizations) to integrate business needs with appropriate technological environments. This is critical in dynamic environments where disparate organizational systems and personnel interact in decision-making processes. Research and implementations need to address decision support dimensions to support multi-enterprise collaborative decision making and support. These include heterogeneity in terms of breadth and depth of data, complexity in terms of models, solvers and data/process visualizations, distribution with regards to reach and range, versatility of domains and paradigms, flexibility, reusability and extensibility.

Although recent research has generated contributions in terms of framework, architecture, and implementation, there are still areas where gaps remain. These include the following:

A majority of existing architectures are platform-dependent simply because they require components that operate in-concert with them to be developed on the same operating platforms as the architecture itself. This reduces their flexibility, versatility and extensibility.

They lack the ability to provide true flexibility with regards to the integration of decision-making components. They instead require an Application Programming Interface (API) that is limited in nature to achieve integration with other systems across organizational boundaries.

Because of its high complexity, flexible mapping between decision making components to support ad-hoc multi-enterprise collaborative integration in a changing business environment is not common.

Reusability of decision making components in order to reduce the need for expert knowledge is also limited.

Heterogeneity of data in terms of being able to not only connect to any ERP system but also any other system/database is not as flexible and open as it should be. For example, multi-enterprise collaborative decision-making is made more difficult as vendor-specific ERP applications do not allow full integration with rival applications, making it difficult to have complete visibility resulting in not being able to make the best decision for the problem at hand.

There is a limitation in terms of the type of communication standards/protocols that are employed to connect to other tools / applications/systems that reside on different platforms in other organizations across supply networks. For example, Oracle BPEL Process Manager is limited to the use of Web Services only, as a service provider to integrate decision-making processes across multiple enterprises.

Finally, frameworks, architectures and implementations lack the support for a generic multi-enterprise collaborative decision-making model and lifecycle that can be applied to any paradigm or platform.

We focus on two equally important generic objectives from which specific objectives are derived. The first is to design a flexible framework and architecture that aids decision making activities within and across organizations. The second is to illustrate the flexibility and validity of the framework and architecture designed by implementing it via a Multi-Enterprise Collaborative Decision Support System (MECDSS). These generic objectives have five specific objectives:

1.

Identify and define appropriate and accurate system dimensions with respect to decision support.

2.

Investigate ways and means by which current DSSG and Specific DSSs do and do not address these system dimensions, from the perspective of multi-enterprise collaboration.

3.

Leverage the strengths of existing frameworks, architectures, and implementations to formulate and propose a MEC decision support model, decision making lifecycle, MECDSS framework, and a MECDSS architecture that addresses some of the gaps in the decision support dimensions.

4.

Implement the proposed model, lifecycle, frameworks, and architecture via a specific scenario using a relevant implementation platform that is able to utilize appropriate decision components.

5.

Evaluate the proposed model, lifecycle, framework, architecture, and implementation environment against the original decision support dimensions.

To this end, this paper contributes the following to the selected area of research:

1.

Identification and synthesis of problems and issues with regards to decision making and support in the area of multi-enterprise collaboration.

2.

Identification of the requirements for the design of an open and flexible system that overcomes the identified problems and issues.

3.

Proposal of an open and flexible multi-enterprise collaborative decision making and support model and lifecycle process. The lifecycle process should guide decision makers from the identification of problems right through implementation of the resulting system.

4.

Design of a domain-independent multi-enterprise collaborative decision support conceptual and system framework, and architecture that overcome the problems identified in (1); fulfill the requirements for an open and flexible multi-enterprise collaborative system identified in (2); and support the multi-enterprise collaborative decision support model and lifecycle proposed in (3).

United Kingdom, Green IT and DSS

he provision and standard of open space in the United Kingdom is formally recognised and protected by a range of planning devices, and through guidelines which have been adopted widely at the local level. Predominant among these are PAN 65 (Scottish Executive, 2003) and in England PPG 17 (DETR, 2001), each of which suggest a framework within which open spaces should be provided and managed. The extent to which these documents can be regarded as providing national 'standards' is limited in that a significant, although perhaps appropriate, emphasis is placed on locally determined strategies and solutions.

NPPG 11: Sport, Physical Recreation and Open Space (Scottish Office, 1996) states that: "The Government's objective through the planning system is to seek to protect and enhance the land and water resources required for the nation's sport and physical recreation. All sports and recreation make some call upon Scotland's land resource, and many require special buildings or facilities. They may also be in competition for land with other uses such as housing, industry or open space. It is part of councils' responsibilities to take full account in their preparation of development plans and development control decisions of the community's need for recreational space and sporting facilities including the need for specialist facilities, to have regard to current levels of provision and deficiencies, and to resist the loss of unique resources or facilities with a wider role."

The drive of that document is clearly to protect open space, with the suggestion being that 'councils should lead by example and generally resist development of open space and playing fields in their ownership'. The document then goes on to suggest that councils should include views on the 'level of provision' required for sporting and recreational facilities, the implication (implied or stated) being that such levels be determined by largely quantitative measures of distance (catchment) and accessibility (including further mention of the NPFA standard). Throughout, there is an emphasis placed on the completion of local audits, without which any measure of deficiency would be almost impossible to determine.

The revision of PPG17 (DETR, 2001) adopted a new title encompassing 'open space, sport and recreation', and recognised the importance of informal spaces. At that stage, the Government stated that 'open space standards are best set locally. National standards cannot cater for local circumstances, such as differing demographic profiles and the extent of existing built development in an area'. Planning authorities were advised to adopt a strategic approach and plan positively for providing open space, provide strong protection for existing open space, resist new development opportunities which might diminish recreational provision, ensure accessibility, and to provide good quality open space and recreational facilities as a part of new communities. Coupled with this, there is a clear statement that such locally set standards should include:

• quantitative elements (i.e. how much?),

• qualitative components, to provide for an assessment of need for enhancement and • accessibility, which is defined as including distance thresholds and consideration of cost (the inference being to use variations on travel cost methods).

The importance of setting such standards, at the local level, is linked to an assessment of need, related to auditing, and to the formulation of development plans. An obvious problem associated with these requirements is that of the resources required to actually undertake the necessary audits and set standards which can be regarded as appropriate and comparable with other authorities. The associated guidance notes (DETR, 2001b) suggest a process based on the following key elements:

• identifying needs, • setting standards, • identifying deficiencies and • developing a strategy and related policies.

Clearly, it became apparent that a mechanism was required whereby a complex data set could be accessed and used by decision makers to derive valid conclusions with regard to open space provision at the specific local level, as opposed to via generic macro level models.

Within Scotland, there has been a growing acceptance of the need for a robust method for better understanding of public perceptions within public decision-making. Although public consultations have been required for well over 25 years in the UK, a move towards a deeper participation has been hampered by a lack of reliable, efficient and relevant methodologies.

Differences in opinion between design professionals and lay people have been the focus of much research (Hershberger, 1969, Hershberger & Cass, 1988, Hubbard, 1997, Nasar and Kang, 1989, Purcell, 1986, Wilson, 1996, Wilson & Canter, 1990). Indeed, it is now a widely held view that design professionals hold a different system of constructs to lay people, through which they understand and evaluate the environment (Hubbard, 1997, Wilson, 1996).1

Factors such as social classes, cultures, and ethnic groups affect the way people evaluate their surroundings (Gans, 1961, 1974, 1982). If social environments are designed according to the tastes of professionals, they often fail to satisfy the users (Nasar & King, 1989; Newman, 1973). As a result, decision-makers cannot rely totally on professional evaluations to provide guidelines for environmental quality (Hanyu, 1997). Incorporating public participation into the design process is therefore necessary to ensure that needs of the public are met.

Hudspeth (1986) believes that public participation in the planning process is essential to achieve sensible environmental initiatives in development and revitalisation projects. The public should be given an active role in development process, if projects are to enjoy long-term success. Nasar (1998) argues that communities should be able to express their preferences for future projects. They should be given the opportunity to express what it is they think should be preserved, what should be added, what should be changed, and what should be removed (Jones, 1990, Sanoff, 2000).

Research in disciplines as diverse as environmental economics and psychology has provided methods to engage the public in decision making. The methods emerging from that work can be applied readily within planning procedures, if resources are available. The possible benefits of such work are that designs will be arguably more 'socially sustainable' where the end users have been involved in the planning process.

Decision support for green space planning

Development planning would normally be driven by a number of strategic issues. These might include the need to understand how green space and amenity open space contribute to quality of life (Dunnet et al., 2002, Urban Parks Forum, 2002). Systems developed over the past three decades have established that spatial databases can contain and analyse both quantitative and qualitative data (recent work includes, for example, Yao and Thill, 2004, Balram and Dragi-evi?, 2004), and as such should be included in plans to develop and manage open space standards.

The use of GIS to support decision making and participation in planning has gained significant recognition in recent years (recent relevant work includes that of Appleton and Lovett, 2004, Herrmann and Osinski, 1999 and Phua and Minowa, 2004). It can also be argued that open spaces across a wide range of typologies can be treated as public goods. Therefore, the distribution of these should be equitable, and they should be easily accessible to the communities they serve (Scottish Executive, 2003).

Thus, the principal aim of Decision Support Systems

ITcon Vol. 11 (2006), Laing et al., pg. 180

2

(DSS), within the context of this study, was to provide support for decision-makers with responsibilities for strategic planning or design of green spaces. Bearing in mind the demands of guidance documents such as PAN 65 and PPG 17, they essentially tend to comprise:

• a geographical database, with access to an inventory of green spaces within the city (perhaps stored in a spreadsheet or database),

• a set of tools or models that, operating on the database, produce new information, relevant for the decision making process and • a user interface. It should be noted that the form of a DSS must be related to the questions requiring answers, for example, zoning, prioritisation or access. When developing a DSS, it is necessary to agree with the principal user on which current (or future), design or planning decisions require support. From this, a design process can identify the data, tools and models required to support the user's requirements.

Principal data sources for a DSS would comprise:

• an inventory of open spaces,

• the national topographic map-base, • data from qualitative research (i.e. focus groups and surveys),

• data from quantitative research (e.g. preference studies, including choice experiments or rating studies) and • attributes derived from the spatial modelling of green spaces (e.g. distances from the entrance to open spaces).

Following the focus group discussions, the key issues that a DSS should be capable of addressing are: awareness, use patterns, facilities, maintenance, accessibility, quality and neighbourhood specific issues. The surveys provide one source of data for the DSS, which can then augment them in combination with spatial modelling. Within the DSS, there was a need for standardised approaches to, or linkages between, some designations of park or green space (e.g. park typology).

The development of a DSS for supporting the planning and management of urban green spaces follows, with consideration first given to issues of the process by which such a tool would be populated, and the uses of such a system. A first step was to agree with the local authority (the principal user) on which current (or future), design or planning decisions it should be support, from which a system design could be undertaken to identify the data, tools and models required to support the user's requirements.

Green IT and other support systems: An Overview

Even though the technology exists to run TPS applications using online processing, it is not done for all applications. For many applications, batch processing is more appropriate and cost-effective. Payroll transactions and billing are typically done via batch processing. An MIS provides managers with information, typically in reports, that support effective decision making and provides feedback on daily operations. Note that business transactions can enter the organization through traditional methods or via the Internet or an extranet connecting customers and suppliers to the firm's transaction processing systems. The MIS uses the data obtained from these sources and processes it into information more usable to managers, primarily in the form of predetermined reports. Decision support systems have a number of characteristics that allow them to be effective management support tools. By supporting all types of decision-making approaches, a DSS gives the decision maker a great deal of flexibility in computer support for decision making. At the core of a DSS are a database and a model base. In addition, a typical DSS contains a dialogue manager, which allows decision makers to easily access and manipulate the DSS and to use common business terms and phrases.

A group decision support system (GDSS), also called group support system and computerized collaborative work system, consists of most of the elements in a DSS, plus GDSS software needed to provide effective support in group decision-making settings. Group decision support systems are used in most industries. GDSS software, often called groupware or workgroup software, helps with joint work group scheduling, communication, and management. One popular package, Lotus Notes, can capture, store, manipulate, and distribute memos and communications that are developed during group projects. An ESS is a special type of DSS, and, like a DSS, an ESS is designed to support higher-level decision making in the organization. ESSs also support strategic planning. Strategic planning involves determining long-term objectives by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, predicting future trends, and projecting the development of new product lines. It also involves planning the acquisition of new equipment, analyzing merger possibilities, and making difficult decisions concerning downsizing and the sale of assets if required by unfavorable economic conditions

Green IT and GHG reduction

The built environment represents a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, and green building requirements are therefore a critical tool in reaching state and local targets for emissions reductions. This report examines what reductions in CO2 emissions could be achieved from various standards for new construction, makes recommendations on what minimum green building standards should be, and addresses concerns related to the adoption of a mandatory green building ordinance.

The analysis presented in this report attempts to quantify the greenhouse gas emission reductions associated with a green building ordinance in the City of Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa or City). Two potential green rating systems were evaluated: the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) New Construction (NC) version 2.2 system was applied to commercial new construction and Build it Green's (BIG) GreenPoints rating system was applied to residential new construction.

While it is abundantly clear that green buildings use less energy, and therefore emit fewer greenhouse gases than conventional buildings, very little literature exists that explicitly addresses greenhouse gas emission reductions associated with green buildings.

It is important to note that the analysis conducted in this study focused only on the greenhouse gas emission reductions associated with on-site energy efficiency in new residential and commercial construction.

2

Passive solar design, efficient water use, materials and resource conservation, waste diversion, and many additional aspects of green building will contribute significantly to greenhouse gas reductions.

An effective green building ordinance is a critical component to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Santa Rosa. Equally, if not more important, is the need to reduce the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with existing buildings. The vast majority of building related greenhouse gas emissions in Santa Rosa in the 2007-2015 and 2007-2020 timeframe come from existing buildings. Fortunately there are several efforts underway in the state of California to address the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with existing buildings. Significant potential exists for Santa Rosa to build on and aide in these efforts.

Before interpreting the results presented in this analysis it is important to note that there are many large uncertainties existing in the underlying data. The results are indicative only and should not be treated as absolutes; at best, they are order of magnitude approximations. The largest uncertainty in the calculations comes from the lack of specific information regarding the energy performance of homes rated under the GreenPoints rating system. The method used to estimate GreenPoints contributions is described in the assumptions and methodology section of this report. Additional uncertainty stems from the estimation of how many points will be achieved in the various categories of the respective green building rating systems. Despite these uncertainties it is apparent that an ordinance that holds new construction to a higher green building standard will generate more greenhouse gas emission reductions than a lower standard.

2.1 Greenhouse Gas Reductions Associated with Onsite Building Energy Use

Table 1 below presents greenhouse gas emission reductions in Santa Rosa, compared to a business as usual baseline, for a residential green building ordinance based on the GreenPoints rating system. Table 1 also presents an equivalent "Cars Taken Off the Road" value for each point level. 3 All emission values in this report are given in metric tons of CO2 equivalent. Note that without mandating that the minimum requirements needed to be labeled "green" under the GreenPoints rating system are met there is no guarantee of greenhouse gas emission reductions for lower point levels. For instance, it may be possible to achieve 50 points in the GreenPoints rating system without reducing on-site energy use at all. Mandating the minimum GreenPoints requirements for all residential new construction would guarantee at least 6,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas reductions in 2015 and 9,400 metric tons in 2020. 2

Table 2 below presents the greenhouse gas emission reductions in Santa Rosa from a commercial green building ordinance based on the LEED NC v2.2 rating system. The approximate LEED level is shown for the point levels evaluated, however, this is an approximation only, as the values were not constrained by the minimum certification requirements in LEED NC v2.2. 4

Note again, without mandating that the minimum requirements of the LEED NC v2.2 are met there is no guarantee of greenhouse gas emission reductions at lower point levels. Mandating the minimum requirements for LEED NC v2.2 certification would guarantee at least 1,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emission reductions in 2016 and 1,600 metric tons in 2020.

The aviation industry

Emissions of greenhouse gases from aviation are rising fast. Emissions from shipping are rising fast. Emissions from the manufacture of cement are rising fast. And emissions from the use of IT are rising fast.

But there's a difference. With some justification, the IT industry has pointed out that it can more than offset the negative consequences of its own growth in emissions by enabling other industries to reduce their emissions. Indeed, the much-quoted "SMART 2020" Report in 2008 (on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative) set this 'offset factor' at a multiple of five. In other words, reductions achieved through the use of Green IT in other key economic sectors would be five times greater than the growth in emissions from the IT ector itself.

That's quite something given that the growth in those emissions from IT are projected to increase from 3% of total global emissions in 2009 to a whopping 6% by 2020.

This chosen report from Fujitsu provides an incredibly helpful, euphoria-dispelling reality check. It doesn't beat around the bush: given current levels of awareness about Green IT, the likelihood of the IT industry achieving that kind of offset factor, through Green IT by 2020, is zero.

Surveying more than 600 Chief Information Officers and Senior IT Managers in eight different sectors in the U.S.A., UK, Australia and India, Fujitsu has honed the methodology it first used in Australia last year to provide some fascinating data on the five key areas of Green IT (see page 6). Its conclusion is simple: "globally, overall Green IT maturity is low."

Interestingly, metrics is the weakest area of all. The baseline here is pretty primitive: in most organizations surveyed, the bill for energy consumed through the use of IT in that organization is only rarely included in the IT department's own operational budget. And if IT managers don't know how much energy they themselves are consuming, they won't know the scale of the emissions they are responsible for, so they will be of little use helping colleagues elsewhere in the organization to deploy IT to reduce overall emissions.

And it's that Enablement Index that really stands out for me. Getting really good at enabling organizations at the micro-level to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint through Green IT is a precondition for getting really good at it at the macro-level.

Governments all around the world are assuming that Green IT will play that enabling, emissions-reducing role at scale. But this Report tells us those assumptions are not just ill-founded at the moment, but potentially lethal if they are allowed to persist.

For policy-makers the world over, the message is stark: wake up and smell that gap between potential and reality.

This section of the paper thus examines the maturity of Green IT in large IT-using organizations in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia and India.

The overall Green IT Maturity level is low and the index across all industries in all countries is 56.4 (out of 100). The most significant finding is the relative lack of maturity of Green IT policies, practices and technologies -- in every industry sector in every country.

The best performing country of the four surveyed is the United Kingdom, with on overall Green IT Readiness Index of 61.0.The United States of America (58.6) rates slightly behind the United Kingdom, a function of the relative sophistication of IT usage in that country. Followed by Australia (53.9) (let down by its low level of measurement) and India (52.0) (where end user Green IT is not widely implemented).

The best performing industry sector is IT/Communications/Media. The relativities between industry sectors remain remarkably consistent across different countries, indicating that Green IT performance is at least as much a function of industry sector as it is of country.

The two operational components of Green IT perform best: End User (61.0) and Enterprise (60.1). These are the components under the control of the IT department, where the techniques and technologies of Green IT are best known, are most noticeable and most advanced. Metrics is the area that consistently scores the lowest -- few organizations are good at measuring the effectiveness of Green IT. Enablement -- the use of IT to improve performance and reduce the carbon footprint outside of the IT function -- also rates low, an indication of the inward focus of many Green IT initiatives.

There is consistently very low performance in the metrics that enable Green IT to be properly measured and monitored and environmentally unsound IT procurement and disposal practices remain widespread. Even in the data center, where the level of IT sophistication is the greatest and where higher energy costs are increasingly forcing changes to operational practices. The IT power bill is not well understood and rarely included in the IT operational budget.

Transforming intent into action requires a Green IT champion. In all countries the appointment of a specific leader to the Green IT role was low. More accountability was evident in the United States of America (45%) and the United Kingdom (44.1%), while in Australia it is 37.8% and in India it is less than one third (31.7%). Leadership, accountability and integration are the 'must have' Green IT ingredients for success.

Green IT means many things to different people. There are too many definitions, and not enough definition. This lack of clarity has made it difficult to measure the effectiveness or the extent of an organization's implementation of Green IT because, in the same way that 'you can't manage what you can't measure'; equally 'you can't measure what you can't define'.

The Green IT Framework is a way of defining Green IT and understanding its many components. The Framework defines four general areas, or "pillars," of Green IT: Lifecycle, End User, Enterprise, and Enablement. It then breaks each of these down further. Lifecycle, for example, comprise the three components of Procurement, Recycle and Reuse, and Disposal. Across these four pillars are five "actions": Attitude, Policy, Practice, Technology and Metrics.

Once Green IT is broken into its components, it becomes possible to measure each in turn. This is done using the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), a standardized way of quantifying the maturity of a business process. The concept of the CMM is often used in the IT industry to describe the level of implementation of various systems. First developed by Watts Humphrey at Carnegie Mellon University, a CMM defines five levels of maturity in the use of any system or technology.

Green IT needs a champion who is responsible for Green IT technologies and policies to achieve truly sustainable outcomes. However in all countries surveyed less than half of respondents have appointed a specific leader to the Green IT role. In the U.S.A. And the UK, the figure is almost half (45.0% and 44.1% respectively), while in Australia it is a little lower (37.8%) and in India it is less than one third (31.7%).

Most often that person is the CIO or someone else in the IT department. Only in Australia is someone outside of IT often responsible for Green IT, and even there it is in only 13.1% of cases.

Green IT needs coordination, because so many different areas of the organization are involved. In organizations lacking an individual with responsibility for Green IT, it is simply not possible to achieve the necessary level of cooperation between these disparate groups. Business sponsorship of Green IT is important, because it provides a broader perspective and is more likely to consider IT's important role as a low carbon enabler.

Green IT and the Government Sector

Green IT and the Corporate Sector

Future Prospects of Green IT in the software industry

A lot of people talk about Green IT, and a lot of people believe it is necessary; however this has not yet translated into significant action. This paper clearly shows that, for every industry in every country, and for every aspect of Green IT, the average level of maturity is low and significant opportunity for improvement remains.

This highlights one of the key issues in Green IT -- responsibility. Green IT is such a large topic that it extends far beyond the data center or the IT department. It affects and is responsible for the end users and lines of business within the organization, the procurement function, and middle and senior management. Without integration into the wider business, Green IT will run the risk of being limited to only tactical project implementations and result in low levels of overall maturity.

This paper identifies the UK as the leading country for Green IT maturity, a possible reflection of the increased awareness resulting from the regulation in their market place. The leading industry sector, perhaps unsurprisingly, is IT/Communications/Media. This industry now has a responsibility to effectively communicate to the broader market place the benefits that can be gained from increased Green IT maturity.

The implementation of End User and Enterprise Green IT are the most advanced of the five indices, likely due to the tactical implementation of quick win or as a byproduct of efficiency initiatives implemented such as virtualization. Although they rate as least mature, the areas of enablement and metrics have the greatest ability to deliver benefit to business, environment and society. Enablement technologies are the key to realising the full benefits of Green IT across all business activities, and a comprehensive system of measurement and reporting will be required to underpin the strategies that will achieve these outcomes.