But financial measures tell the story of past events, an adequate story for industrial age companies for which investments in long-term capabilities and customer relationships were not critical for success. These financial measures are inadequate, however, for guiding and evaluating the journey that information age companies must make to create future value through investment in customers, suppliers, employees, processes, technology, and innovation."
Concept of Sustainability
Decision-making along TBL lines is becoming an accepted approach in implementing the intangible concept of sustainability. Reporting on TBL aims to extend decision-making and disclosure so that decisions explicitly take into consideration the impacts on natural and human capital, as well as financial capital.
Also environmental impacts made through processes, products or services. These may include air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna and human health.
Social impacts take in involvement in shaping local, national and international public policy, equality, treatment of minorities, employee issues and public concern.
Financial considerations include financial performance, activities relating to shaping demand for products and services, employee compensation, community contributions and local procurement policies.
What is Sustainable IT ?
Sustainable IT is a multi-component approach to establishing and sustainably operating an IT business function within an enterprise.
Survey: 80% of IT decision makers believe that implementing Sustainable IT in their organisations is important.
Perceived Barriers:
*51%: cost
*25%: complexity of implementation and maintenance
*21%: potential disruptions to current IT systems
Sustainable IT is becoming increasingly important in the eyes of many organisations. A survey of organisations of all sizes across both the government and corporate sectors found that 80 percent of IT decision makers believe that implementing Sustainable IT in their organisations is important and 49 percent cite ‘positive reputation’ as one of the greatest benefits. However, 51 percent of IT decision makers cite cost as a barrier to implementing Sustainable IT technologies, 25 percent cite the complexity of implementation and maintenance, and 21 percent cite potential disruptions to current IT systems.
Since an IT system is a large and heavily integrated system with many components, a change in any component of the system will impact on several other components. Thus, it is important that decisions are informed by an accurate understanding and assessment of the impacts on the whole IT system. Many will be interested in learning more about the business components of Sustainable IT, which is beyond the scope of this article. Note however that the business components are particularly relevant to decision makers in enterprises and include:
*IT business function governance under which is included; Corporate Social