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CHAPTER

Changing the Way We Work

here is no dearth of information you can refer to in order to make your organization
more environmentally responsible. Although the focus of this book is on making your
TIT activities more environmentally friendly, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention
some things that your organization can do at other levels to be more green.
Although this chapter doesn’t pretend to be the last word for greening your entire
organization, we present some ideas to help implement broader measures in your business.

Rethinking Old Behaviors
Companies do a lot of things simply because that’s how they learned to do business. And
while trial, error, and time have taught them the best way to do business, that “best” way
might not be the most eco-friendly way. What’s more, it may not be the most cost-effective way.
In this section, we’ll look at some ways your organization can rethink behaviors and
turn them into environmentally responsible methods that save money in the process.

Starting at the Top
Before you can make any reasonable progress toward greening your organization, you need
everyone to believe that these steps will ultimately help the organization. If they don’t see a
benefit, there’s no incentive for them to get behind your plan.
Naturally, environmental considerations aren’t new. And in recent years, being
environmentally conscious has been important talk. But the fact of the matter is upper
management needs to sign off on greening your IT department, like any major endeavor
that affects the entire organization.
This may be easy in some cases. You might find that the organization’s CEO wants to
initiate eco-friendly measures because his grandkids talked his ear off about it at a recent
family picnic. You might find that it’s easy because investors are pushing to be environmentally
responsible to protect and build their bottom lines.
On the other hand, old thought processes might make it a hard sell. “We’ve always done
it this way and there’s no reason to change” is a mentality that you’re likely to face when
proposing any change.
If you are recommending change to the organization, you need to present management
with a well-researched proposal that shows not only benefits to the environment and
benefits to the organization, but also fiscal benefits.

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