Does “going green” from a technological perspective imply additional costs and possibly a negative operational benefit? Not according to a recent Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) white paper. In fact, going green can lead to significant cost savings while streamlining business operations. Adoption of the right technology has been found to typically result in three significant winning propositions for your company — cost savings, improved operational efficiencies and environmental benefits.

EMA defines green IT as “products, services and practices designed to improve the efficiency of computing resources in such a way as to reduce the environmental impact of their utilization”. So, greening a company’s operations involves changing processes in order to reduce their impact on the environment.

The Effect of E-Waste on the Environment in China

It is no secret that many businesses around the world are a source of environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions — and that an equal number of corporations are working to change that. Historically speaking, the US has been the largest greenhouse gas emitter, but today China’s environmental problems seem to be increasing at pace with the country’s economic growth. Currently, 16 out of the 20 most polluted cities the world are located in China according to the United Nations Development Program.

The city of Guiyu, China is a prime example of this environmental degradation. This small city’s economy centers on electronic waste (e-waste), which is trash that contains electrically powered products with both valuable and hazardous components. Despite the fact that e-waste imports have been illegal in China since 1996 and the Basel Agreement banned the shipment of electronic waste from the developed to the developing world, over 5,500 businesses in Guiyu are devoted to dismantling e-waste, 80% of which arrives from overseas.

An advantage of not always being the first to do things is the learning opportunity afforded by watching how other people's decisions and investments work out. Recent examples include the trend for biofuels which has sent food prices soaring and has caused forests to be cleared to make space to grow biofuel crops. However, it appears that processing these crops into biofuels may generate more carbon dioxide than burning fossil fuels would have done anyway. Even “green” hybrid vehicles are being questioned because of the size of the carbon footprint associated with the production and transportation of the nickel metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries they use.

As a business professional, I fend off hundreds of emails in a day with various weapons of choice like my BlackBerry or my company laptop. (One recent report estimates the average person sends and receives 133 email messages a day!) Yet just when I think I'm winning the "Battle of the (email) Bulge" by diligently responding, filing, and deleting, I realize mine is a pyrrhic victory. The corporate paper trail I deal with extends well beyond email, piling up in reams of documents that clutter our desks, filing cabinets, faxes, and printers.

The real war against document proliferation is going on right in front of us: on the desktop (the physical one, not the virtual one). A recent study by the Association for Information and Image Management (AAIM) shows that the average professional photocopies a single document 19 times. Multiply that by the estimated 4 trillion paper documents in the U.S. that are growing at a rate of 22% per year and you have quite a pile of paper to manage.

As consumers, I think we are aware of the necessity to change the way we produce and consume things – from food and clothing to transit and buildings – to be more environmentally friendly. And no matter where we fall on the “green” spectrum, I’d wager that we all make some personal efforts to reduce waste and conserve energy.