Alan Calder on IT Governance, information security & ISO 27001

King III has now been in force for about 4 months in South Africa. Judge Mervyn King made the point, at a recent ITWeb conference, that “one of the most critical interdependences is IT, because it’s technology that is going to save the planet“. We call this Green IT, and believe that energy-efficient IT management must become a core part of IT strategy in the future.

Risk management becomes ever more important, as more and more IT is outsourced – but there is more to IT risk management than simply disaster recovery or supply chain management. Increasingly, IT risk, information risk, project risk and business continuity risk must be considered as part of a coherent approach that identifies and seeks to mitigate all forms of unacceptable strategic and operational risk to the organisation; that, of course, is what IT governance is really about.

While Forrester’s recent report says that Green IT initiatives persist, in spite of budget cut backs and other challenges facing IT teams today, the reality is more likely to be that savvy IT leaders recognise that Green IT initiatives can make a substantial contribution to reducing the direct cost of running the IT infrastructure.

Gary Hird, for instance, has led the John Lewis Partnership’s Green IT strategy for some time and he talks about JLP went about this in Green IT in Practice, now in its second edition.  It’s a fascinating and practical description of how one large retail organisation set about driving down its IT costs, reducing its carbon footprint and meeting customer requirements.

Other writers have also addressed these issues: George Spafford focused on the Governance of Green IT, which has a particular focus on managing energy consumption. The recent emergence of EN16001 should give a boost to those looking for a structured approach to energy management.

There is lots of information, advice – and case studies – available for organisations that want to tackle Green IT.