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NEW YORK (OBBeC) - Accenture has announced the introduction of its new Green Technology Suite, a comprehensive set of tools designed to help an organization assess its environmental standing, provide recommendations on how to address its carbon footprint by improving the way information technology (IT) is managed, and support the entire organization’s green agenda.

According to the announcement, the new tools offer a holistic view across the entire IT organization, providing everything from detailed assessments of where the enterprise sits within a green “maturity spectrum,” to suggesting IT initiatives that can be undertaken to proactively address the company’s future carbon footprint. The tools also help calculate the impact of the specific initiatives in terms of workplace environmental efficiency and data center energy savings.

“The new tools, whether used together or individually, provide organizations with much-needed insight into their power consumption and environmental footprint,” said Steve Nunn, global lead for green IT at Accenture. “By implementing the specific, tailored green recommendations, organizations can achieve measurable environmental improvements that contribute to bottom line 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 centre, 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.

The Data Centre Estimator – is used by Accenture consultants to provide an assessment of the environmental and financial impact of data centres. 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 centre 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 behavioural changes.