The value of green business software

Green Business Software

In the wake of a recession and with more and more weight behind green business policies, conditions are right for a perfect storm in the green business software market.

Green IT initiatives can save money and cut carbon, but policies must start reaching further than the server room because using existing business software better can root out even bigger savings in non-IT processes.

A recent article in BusinessWeek highlighted the importance of companies beginning to stop thinking that green IT ends with increasing server utilisation or replacing desktop PCs with thin clients.

Warren Wilson, senior analyst with Ovum, told the Green IT Expo in London last week: "Tools such as virtualisation and power management, those are relatively well understood. What has not been appreciated is the potential of enterprise software to bring about energy conservation outside of the IT arena."

Giving businesses the opportunity to pinpoint wasteful practices

IT is just one way in which a company generates carbon emissions, and Wilson insists that companies must put a greater focus on how technology can help cut the vast majority of carbon emissions that aren't produced by IT.

Green business software gives businesses the opportunity to pinpoint where energy is being wasted and improve the efficiency of their wider operations. Over the many decades the corporate world has developed wasteful processes that are now embedded within the industry, but by harnessing traditional business applications, such as ERP and business intelligence systems, this can now change.

"ERP is 30-year-old software that companies are used to using to calculate financials, inventory levels or distribution... but adding the environmental data stream can make that software even more potent for the business," said Wilson.

According to BusinessWeek, such an approach has helped the oil refiner Valero to dramatically reduce its CO2 emissions and cut each of its plants' annual energy bills by between $2m and $5 million - putting it on course to knock $100 million from the cost of running its refineries each year.

Business intelligence software

Valero has achieved the savings by customising its SAP, ERP and business intelligence software to provide displays on staff PCs showing measurements of key data, such as the flow rate of the crude oil or operating temperature of each plant.

The figures showed Valero where it was wasting money and energy and allowed it to adjust each variable to achieve the savings.

It is much easier to take steps in reducing carbon emissions once a company knows exactly where the carbon is coming from. And once businesses have such efficiency measures in place, they can continue to refine and improve their energy usage and "enter a new realm of positive reinforcement," according to Wilson.

Environmental and economic incentives are already there and the financial rewards will continue to grow as new measures, such as carbon tax and cap, come into play.

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