A new McKinsey report is an eye-opener: It claims that Green IT can help eliminate 7.8 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2020, which it says is equivalent to 15 percent of all global emissions today.
The report, available here, says that Green IT can be used to cut carbon emissions via automation and intelligence, for example, in optimizing energy use in buildings, powering smart controls in factories, and making the energy grid more efficient.
The report first warns that IT itself has become a big greenhouse gas emitter. Today, it estimates, IT and related technologies emit 0.86 metric gigatons of emissions every year, which it says is approximately 2 percent of all emissions.
By the year 2020, the report warns, IT and related technologies will emit 1.54 metric gigatons, which is 3 percent of all emissions, and twice what the United Kingdom emits in a year. And that's a good-case scenario, which assumes that there will be significant efforts to increase energy efficiency and hold down emissions.
However, using IT to cut down greenhouse gases more can more than make up for the increased emissions, the report says. It concludes: "Information and communications technologies can help abate far more emissions in the general economy their own production and use generates."
For example, it claims that using IT to power smart buildings "could cut emissions by 1.68 metric gigatons a year." Smart transportation systems could reduce emissions globally by 1.52 metric gigatons a year. It finds savings in smart power grids, and other areas as well. Overall, it concludes, the smart use of IT:
could help to eliminate 7.8 metric gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2020, equivalent to 15 percent of global emissions today and five times more than our estimate of the emissions from these technologies in 2020.The report is well worth checking out.