An openly green letter to the software industry

Today’s “green” software applications leave a lot to be desired. In this open letter to software industry CEOs, Jyoti Banerjee of KiteBlue argues that we need fresh thinking and leadership to make a genuine difference to the industry’s poorly-served customer.

Dear software CEO,

First of all, warmest greetings for 2010. I know that 2009 was a rather unusual year, to say the least, and I am certainly looking forward to what 2010 has to offer. But this letter is not about New Year greetings or resolutions. So, on with my missive.

The carbon footprint of information and communications technologies is growing and growing. Laptops, servers, mobile phones, networks, cloud farms and their like are expected to contribute around 1.5 gigatons of carbon to our planet’s footprint, at least three times more than their contribution in 2002. Yet these same technologies are enabling all sorts of other industries to cut their carbon footprints. The smart guys at McKinsey have estimated that IT – an industry in which your companies play a key role - will enable around 7.8 gigatons of emissions to be cut from other industries by 2020, or around a sixth of global emissions today.

So it should be worth doing.

But is it? Are we really seeing myriad industries abating their environmental emissions as a result of the output of the ICT industries? Quite possibly we are; I am not in a position to comment. But the one industry that I have tracked for nearly two decades, business application software, seems to be pulling up short.

Yes, that is your industry.

Carbonated apps have no fizz

The software industry seems to have little to offer its customers in terms of value in environmental management. Some of you say that this is because your customers have shown no interest in green software apps. And you would be right - most of your customers have ignored green software, at a time when climate change and the environment are two of the hottest properties around.

But why is that?

I think it is because your "carbonated" software applications have no fizz whatsoever. What do I mean by that? Well, do read on.

It’s not as if we don’t have countless little carbon apps on offer, thank you. If the number of carbon calculators from application software companies and on the Internet was a measure of how seriously climate change was being tackled, then the problem of carbon emissions would have to be filed under the category “solved.” But carbon calculators and environmental dashboards are just window-dressing. They are very limited in their scope and their thinking, and their perpetrators are condemning the business software industry to the role of bit-players in the climate change saga playing out in front of our eyes.

Let me give you some reasons why.