The Leadership Role of Information Technology in Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility
The Leadership Role of Information Technology in Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the results where thirty-seven of the world’s largest IT firms were benchmarked for environmental performances including energy, water, emissions reduction, asset movement, recycling initiatives and corporate environmental transparency. Concerns regarding the materials and processes used in the manufacturing of electronic devices have come under increased scrutiny as part of increase global environmental awareness. What was only a murmur of concern fifteen years ago has become a roar as identification of toxic materials used in manufacturing in the IT industry has forced IT vendors to examine the entire supply chain for potential end of life risk exposure. Primary and secondary data collected for 2008 was collected to compare IT vendors and non-IT vendor’s environmental initiatives in an effort to identify leadership and public environmental commitments. The author contends that these results could potential increase vendor brand equity as a result of improved corporate social responsibility metrics. The result of this paper also provided improved transparency to the broad IT industry by using quantitative results when compared and contrasted within competitive IT sectors such as hardware, software and telecommunications & network providers. The author concludes that the IT industry is uniquely position to lead other industries, institutions and individuals in downstream improved environmental behaviours as a result of internally successful environmental improvements. The key area of leadership within the examined IT firms is their increased transparency and reporting of environmental behaviours within the firm. This research concludes that IT vendors that have chosen to measure and report environmental metrics from global operations demonstrate superior environmental performance across the rudimentary metrics established with this research when compared to the non-IT vendor’s examined in this study

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