A challenging outlook

Since June 2023, we have experienced nine of the hottest months on record and there’s now an 80% chance that the 1.5℃ limit – the target established in the Paris Agreement in 2015 – will be passed in one of the next five years.

These statistics paint a stark picture. And yet, there isn’t an appropriately urgent response from governments, or major global organisations. Only a third of the UK’s biggest companies have committed to achieving net zero in their operations by 2030 and the UK government has just slashed it’s £28bn green spending pledge to £4.7bn. 

At Version 1, I’ve observed a mixed approach in commercial conversations. On the plus side, sustainability has been built into the scoring criteria for many tenders, ensuring that solution providers like us must have a robust approach to embedding sustainability into the solutions we propose. However, from my conversations with customers, I have to say that the question of sustainability has never come up. The simple fact is that private entities are designed to drive commercial outcomes for their shareholders, over and above all other objectives, including sustainability or the greater good..

Will this global crisis somehow elicit a different response?

Well, the basic mechanics of capitalism have not changed. How, therefore, can we expect the behaviours and priorities of organisations to change? Ultimately, commercial success and growth are still the absolute number one priority. If that can be achieved whilst also reducing carbon emissions, then great. But when push comes to shove, and the two no longer align, the result often means rowing backon previous carbon commitments, as we’ve seen from many notable organisations recently.

Let’s change the conversation

Yet, there is cause for hope. And that’s due to the fact that a low-carbon sustainable IT solution is predominately a low-cost IT solution. I believe, therefore, that we need to reframe the conversation and speak the language of business.  

When you consider the costs associated with running a modern cloud-native solution, it’s typically centered around compute, memory and data storage/transfer. The goal of sustainable technology generally aligns very well with minimising and optimising consumption of these. 

The following are examples of some of the most impactful actions organisations can take to reduce the carbon footprint of their IT systems. However, they are also actions that will reduce the run cost significantly: 

  • Turning off non-production environments when not in use, using Infrastructure as Code to build them on demand
  • Running applications on shared server models to optimise resources 
  • Moving to a serverless model to only consume resources when in use 
  • Right sizing of applications and servers 
  • Putting in place an effective and pragmatic approach to data management such that data is not duplicated or held ad infinitum in hot storage 
  • Running batch jobs at times and in locations where there is low carbon intensity 
  • Applying a pragmatic approach to Non-Functional Requirements, such as reducing availability from six 9s to five 9s

An example of this intrinsic relationship between lost cost and low carbon in action is when Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust employed Version 1‘s Health Planning and Budgeting solution based on Oracle EPM Cloud Planning. This engagement used Version 1‘s Journey to Cloud methodology to achieve its finance transformation objectives. The solution streamlined their business planning and budgeting process, saving significant time, and indirectly contributing to sustainability by reducing resource usage. 

What gets measured gets managed

Unfortunately, however, many organisations still struggle to measure the cost to build and run individual applications, with the costs managed under a central IT budget. This lack of specificity and individual accountability leads to a degree of apathy when managing and driving down costs and consumption – with the responsibility left to the CTO or Head of IT, who, without the data per application, struggle to understand which applications require attention. 

It’s my belief that implementing an effective FinOps process is the key to turning the dial and driving the sustainable IT agenda. Only then will organisations be able to track the cost of building and running IT systems and measure the financial savings these green measures can bring. This was recognised in the latest “State of FinOps 2024 report” which highlighted that waste reduction is the top priority for FinOps practitioners and that collaboration between FinOps and Sustainability teams is set to grow.  

Coupled with FinOps is the Green Software Foundation’s excellent work in driving the narrative forward. As a result, we as IT practitioners now have an ISO approved Software Carbon Intensity specification allowing us to measure applications’ carbon intensity. By integrating this measurement into a holistic framework for tracking application metrics such as cost and carbon, we can begin to empower and enlighten application owners on positive steps they can take to drive these down. 

Conclusion

Global warming is the biggest challenge facing our planet, and the technology industry is both part of the problem and solution. We at Version 1 believe that, fundamentally, the path to success lies in aligning green initiatives with our customers’ existing commercial interests. If we can succeed in doing that, then customers will naturally choose the green path forward.

What is Version 1 doing in this space?

We can help organisations with their sustainability (and cost-cutting) agenda in many ways:

  • By embedding sustainability into the Service Design process, ensuring applications are designed to minimise consumption
  • By including sustainability as a Non-Functional Requirement to ensure relevant requirements such as level of availability, data storage approach, cloud locations and system architecture are all considered through the lens of minimising consumption
  • Use of modern cloud tooling technology such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to enable environments to be switched off when not in use
  • Providing FinOps services to our customers, both for existing applications and as part of new application implementations
  • By embedding Carbon Level Agreements (CLAs) in our managed services as a promise to proactively control and lower the carbon emissions from the services you use.

To learn more about our sustainable technology solutions, you can reach out to us here Talk to us | Version 1 and one of our experts will be in touch.