Green IT and the 2% Solution

About a year ago we embarked on a project to interview senior leaders working in the area of sustainability, environmental engagement, value chain management, green product development and more. The goal is to capture the leading practices and ideas of groups and organizations who have made cutting edge contributions to optimize resources, reduce emissions and build innovative processes and products to introduce in the marketplace. I posted about this previously when we did the Thomas Friedman event.

We have interviewed sustainability practitioners from Microsoft, Green Mountain Coffee, Cornell University, Aveda, and more but most recently we had the opportunity to sit with John Glowacki, Chief Technology Officer for CSC and David Moschella, Global Research Director for CSC’s Leading Edge Forum.I asked John what role senior leaders need to play in organizations to help Green initiatives work.  I thought he would talk about the importance of leaders modeling the way, but instead he talked about how organically change within CSC has been growing from the bottom up.  Groups within CSC across the globe have been creating and sharing their own innovative green initiatives.  This kind of bottom up change behavior has also fostered a kind of creative competitiveness – divisions are competing in a friendly manner how to best optimize and reduce the impact of their operations.  And in an effort to make gains, people are building creative and innovative solutions.  This is the kind of co-opetition has the effect of accelerating change.