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For business and governments much of the environmental focus over the last several years has been on sustainability. That buzzword can mean many things to many people, but on a larger scale it refers to maintaining a balance.
Environmental sustainability doesn't mean stopping factories from producing waste or carbon emissions. It does mean, however, finding ways to offset those negative by-products with earth-friendly practices. A company might practice sustainability, for example, if it purchases Green power from such sources as wind generators to power its data centers.
The point is, companies have made significant progress in recent years in improving their business practices around sustainability. Such corporations as Wal-Mart now produce an annual sustainability report and others have appointed chief sustainability officers to take an accurate account of a company's environmental footprint and to find ways to reduce it.
Of course, that was before the recession took hold. Now, sustainability has taken on a whole new meaning. For many companies, sustainability is about merely staying in business. It's about slashing jobs, closing plants, and finding ways to refinance operations.
That's why, as we mark Earth Day 2009, sustainability has met a critical test. Will companies continue funding initiatives aimed at reducing their environmental footprint, or will they quietly backtrack on commitments?
To be certain, the economic circumstances are difficult, but it would be wrong and dangerously shortsighted for companies to lose their way. The same pressures that caused companies to take sustainability seriously in the first place - concerns about global warming, scrutiny from the Internet and lobby groups, and the very real threat of lawsuits for corporate misbehavior - are not going away.
And if companies decide to backtrack on their sustainability practices now that the economy is difficult, it will only lend credence to those that say companies need to be legislated into acting in the public good.
This is one front where the technology sector can take a leadership role. In a report released earlier this year, Ceres, a coalition of investors, environmental groups and public interest organizations, published a ranking of the environmental practices of 63 global corporations. Technology companies fared the best in the study and, in fact, IBM came out on top of the ranking, Dell placed third and Intel fourth. Only British grocer Tesco managed to break up the technology clean sweep by placing second.
The world is reeling and desperately in need of leadership on the environment. As a community, CIOs and the technology sector in general, need to step up to the plate to ensure that sustainability remains firmly on the corporate agenda.
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