Sustainability in IT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Sustainability in IT - Essay Example The economic perspective of sustainability is about creating a long lasting trade system. On the other hand, corporate suitability is about focusing on the impact of business on the environment and society. The adoption of principles pertaining to sustainable development is therefore extremely important (Newsome, Moore and Dowling, 2002, p. 303). Nevertheless, in reality sustainability and business do not makes a good pair as organizations often struggle to implement sustainability measures. IT Industry and Software Engineering Information technology can be portrayed as a tool which is used to record, store, classify and process data into meaningful information. The information or the process data is then used for different application. Software Engineering is another major area of the IT industry. It is defined as the application of a quantifiable, disciplined and systematic approach towards the development, design and maintenance of a software package. In software engineering, sust ainability is a crucial factor. Although software engineering does not have any direct impact on the ecology due to its virtual nature, the procedure employed for creating it impacts the environment. The IT industry has been a major producer of wastages basically due to its shorter product life cycle. Therefore, depending upon this phenomenon IT companies throughout the world are trying their best to embrace sustainable growth. Sustainability in IT industry Although the large number of studies has been carried out about sustainability, the studies related to the impact and advantage of sustainability on the IT industry have been hardly done before. With buzzwords such as ‘Green computing’ and ‘Green IT’ the relationship between IT and sustainability got strengthened. The primary rationale behind adopting sustainability in IT is not only due to the rules of government, but companies are also becoming socially and environmentally responsible. Now to illustrat e the subject of the project in broader way, a particular company which practices sustainable development will be chosen. Once the company gets determined, the topic will be addressed in the context of the company. On reviewing various IT companies around the world the appropriate company for this project is IBM. Discussion & Analysis Principles of Sustainability Sustainability has always been a subject that has discussed along with corporate social responsibility. The principles of sustainability are highly dependent on the aspects of corporate social responsibility. In general, there are six sustainability principles which help a community to ensure social, environmental, and economic systems get well integrated. The principles of sustainability are as follows: 1. Maintain and try to improve the living standards of the residents. The quality of life one leads is highly dependent upon the community where the individual lives. Some of the vital components of a community include heal th care, education, housing, income, legal rights and employments. Hence it becomes the duty of the organization to look after the welfare of the society and preserve the environment where it is presently operating. 2. Try to enhance the economic vitality of the community. In order to achieve sustainability, it is imperative to have a viable local economy. Furthermore, the economy which is sustainable also remains diversified so that it does not get disturbed by any of the external or internal disasters. Therefore,