Skip to main content

Japan Leads World in Harnessing IT for Sustainability

<p>A new ranking of green IT leadership finds Japan far out in front in its successes to use IT to reduce its carbon footprint. Denmark and Germany tie for second, while the U.S. fails to place in the top 10.</p>

In the global effort to avert the worst impacts of climate change, governments, NGOs and enterprises -- and not just IT firms -- have long held out the promise of technological solutions to some of the world's biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Those solutions range from telework programs for large numbers of employees to smart buildings to dematerialization of physical goods in favor of digital products.

A new study by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), a joint partnership between IT industry companies and international NGOs, looks at how well countries have managed to implement green IT solutions within their borders.

The findings put Japan far out in front with a score of 85, and far ahead of Denmark and Germany, which are tied for second place with a score of 65 each.

The scores are tied to national commitments to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change -- the group that convenes each year for the Conference of Parties, better known as COP 15 (in Copenhagen in 2009), COP 16 (in Cancun in 2010) and this year's COP 17 (in Durban, South Africa, this December). COP 17 kicks of in six months, and GeSI used the upcoming event as a chance to put global efforts on IT-for-sustainability in perspective.

The scores for each country are based on 15 criteria, ranging from the use of telecommunications in lieu of physical travel to incorporating smart grid or smart buildings solutions in the national infrastructure.

The full list of the top 10 countries for low-carbon IT strategies, included below, is notable for who made the list as well as who didn't: 

Rank Country Total Score
1 Japan 85
2 Denmark 65
3 Germany 65
4 Ireland 59
5 European Union 55
6 Netherlands 55
7 Australia 53
8 Finland 53
9 Romania 53
10 India 44

 

Japan is far out in the lead in part because of its commitment to green IT solutions -- GeSI mentions its telework efforts, and just today the country's prime minister floated an idea to make all its new buildings go solar.

Readers will note that the United States is nowhere to be seen on the list, despite some efforts by the U.S. government to promote telework and consolidate its data centers. Interesting also that both the European Union is included as a separate entry on a list that includes six of its member countries. I've asked GeSI for more details about the rankings, and will update this post to reflect any new information I get.

The rankings of countries by GeSI follows on a number of reports and UN-related calls to action the group has published in recent years. Most influential has been its SMART 2020 report, published in 2008 that lays out the many ways that IT can reduce the world's carbon emissions. But the group has been pushing U.N. member countries to embrace green IT for the last several years, and in 2010 it issued its Guadalajara ICT Declaration and ICT Solutions for a Low-Carbon Future, both targeted to the COP 16 negotiations in Cancun, Mexico.

Photo licensed by shlomaster.

More on this topic