Accenture has released the Accenture Green Technology Suite. It is a set of tools to help an organization assess its environmental standing and provide some recommendations to reduce its carbon footprint by improving the way IT is managed.
The flash based tool gives a view across the entire IT organization. It provides detailed assessments of where the company is within a maturity spectrum and suggests IT initiatives to address the company’s carbon footprint.
The tools also help calculate the impact of specific initiatives in terms of workplace environmental efficiency and data center energy savings.
The Accenture Green Technology Suite includes:
The Accenture Green Maturity Model – assesses the environmental efficiency of IT, suggesting actions to improve the organization’s overall environmental standing.
Based on the responses to 300 questions across five key areas – working practice, office environment, data center, procurement, and corporate citizenship – on topics ranging from commitment to reducing CO2 emissions, to type of enterprise network, the maturity model produces a comprehensive scorecard that rates where the organization sits on the green maturity spectrum on a scale from zero to five.
The Accenture Green Maturity Model is customized in terms of depth of the assessment, and in benchmarking the organization against peers in the same industry, as well as companies of comparable size and geographic footprint. A detailed plan of action is produced, prioritizing a series of initiatives.
For a fifteen-minute, high-level green snapshot, a Flash-based tool is available at www.accenture.com/gmm.
The Data Center Estimator – is used by Accenture consultants to provide an assessment of the environmental and financial impact of data centers. The Estimator suggests energy reduction strategies based on information gathered from the facility, such as air conditioning, power distribution, and server, storage, and networking components, among others.
The estimator works by taking an initial assessment of the current IT and facility landscape; creates “what if” scenarios, such as the effect of a rise in energy prices of varying percentages; what would happen should a cleaner source of power become available or if there were changes in capacity demand for servers or storage; develops a data center strategy road map that offers before-and-after snapshots; and then allows users to visualize the expected outcomes in terms of carbon output, cost reduction and electricity consumption across different scenarios.
The Workplace Estimator – helps an organization adopt a greener technology culture by developing recycling and energy saving policies for personal computers and procuring new equipment with energy efficiency in mind.
Using a web-based interface, Accenture consultants use the Workplace Estimator to identify rapid environmental and financial assessments of workplace initiatives. It models optimization scenarios such as thin clients, telepresence and equipment refreshes, and allows the organization to view results based on different scenarios. The Workplace Estimator creates a road map that specifies not only what should be done, but when, helping the organization understand the likely impact of planned financial and/or behavioral changes.