Regulating Green IT: Laws, Standards and Protocols

The global focus on Green IT extends to all organisations, as regulators, industry associations, and social movements are ?>encouraging?> public and private sector organisations to leverage the direct effects and enabling effects of Green IT. This is being achieved through a combination of laws, standards, and social mechanisms. The objective of this chapter is to delineate the mix of regulatory, non-regulatory, and other influences being brought to bear on business and IT manufacturing organisations to make them more environmentally sustainable. The chapter: 1) describes the global regulations governing Green IT; 2) discusses the scope of emerging regulations and public policy on Green IT; 3) explores the complex web of regulatory, business and other forces acting on organisations to adopt Green IT; 4) deliberates the future of Green IT in the context of the growth in regulatory and other pressures; and, finally, 5) challenges the conventional wisdom on self-regulation on environmental issues.