Green IT: Best Practices for Responsible Digital

 Information technology has experienced exponential growth in recent years, becoming omnipresent today. The lockdown periods we have experienced have accelerated this with companies setting up resilient hardware and software infrastructures (on-demand and on-premise), accessible to workers both locally and remotely to ensure essential service continuity. Among individuals, there has also been an increased use of devices and online services, with more than 59 million internet users in France in January 2021 spending over 5 hours connected on average (source BDM "Key Figures of the Internet and Social Networks in France in 2021").

These considerable figures obviously demonstrate the weight of our environmental footprint, contributing to climate change, ecosystem degradation, and the depletion of natural resources. Several studies indicate that the user work environment (computer terminal, software...) is the sector with the greatest impact, followed by data centers (at the forefront with cloud technologies), IT departments, and network infrastructures.

To limit the environmental impact of new technologies, a community of digital actors, aware of the climate emergency, proposes a set of best practices aimed at developing a more responsible digital environment.     

Best Practices for a More Responsible Digital World

These best practices that contribute to a more responsible and sustainable digital environment are determined based on the life cycle of digital goods or services.

In the early phases, it will be necessary to implement a responsible purchasing strategy by precisely defining your needs in terms of hardware and software. You will also need to integrate reliable alternatives into your processes, such as the secondary market for perpetual second-hand software licenses. It will also be imperative to deploy a shared infrastructure to optimize the management of data flows and the use of hardware and software resources. Similarly, you will make your software architecture more eco-resilient and simplify user interfaces by refocusing the scope of your applications on essential functionalities.

In the usage phases, IT departments will need to make the most of the performance and storage capacities of existing hardware infrastructures. Each employee will need to integrate best practices to limit the electrical consumption of their workstation (energy-saving settings, shutting down workstations and servers if inactive for a prolonged period) and ensure its longevity (regular maintenance, disk scanning, antivirus...). Concerning software, you will need to adopt a selective update strategy by focusing on essential functional aspects and security. Directly linked to data flow and management, the storage architecture of your data and how your employees access it will need to be optimized. The printing sector, with a significant environmental impact (electricity consumption, paper, and consumables), will also need to be rethought to limit the number of printers per BU and optimize their use. 

Second-Hand Software Licenses as a Strong Link in a Sustainable Circular Economy

Extending the lifespan of IT equipment, hardware, and software is one of the main challenges of more responsible computing. You are free to select the necessary software versions and quantities based on your usage and needs. This way, you avoid over-licensing and the race for accessory technological innovations. By purchasing second-hand software licenses on the Softcorner marketplace that precisely meet your functional requirements, you actively contribute to the development of a circular economy based on extending the lifespan of digital resources. Moreover, your investment in software licenses on the secondary market is safe and legal (European Court of Justice ruling of July 3, 2012). By adopting this alternative solution offered by the Softcorner marketplace, you benefit from fully compliant software licenses (documentation, license key...) at lower costs. You also gain agility and flexibility compared to managing new licenses subject to publishers' roadmaps.