IBM Envizi and IBM Turbonomic are providing an integrated solution to help reduce energy consumption and transform sustainability ambition into action.

The focus on sustainability throughout the corporate world has been well-documented. However, capturing, managing and deriving insights from the data to inform and support actions to advance sustainability goals can be challenging.

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are motivated to reduce the energy demand of data centers, recognizing that lowering energy consumption makes both business and environmental sense. Moreover, CIOs are uniquely positioned to apply their expertise in data and technology, supporting actions across their organization to operationalize sustainability ambitions and drive lasting impact.

IBM Envizi ESG Suite + IBM Turbonomic

To equip CIOs with tools to help reduce data center energy consumption and carbon impact, and support their organization’s sustainability strategy, IBM is announcing a new software integration between IBM Envizi ESG Suite and IBM Turbonomic. Together, the integrated solution provides the CIO with near real-time visibility of data center energy demand and emissions impact at an application level to support the optimization of data center resources and workload placement. It can also help organizations move toward a single source of truth for enterprise-wide data on environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters, a key step in driving overall progress toward sustainability goals.

Without data, sustainability targets may not be not visible, actionable or operational. With their deep understanding of the role of data and their expertise in technology, CIOs are well-positioned to make a meaningful impact on their organization’s sustainability agenda.

Three actions CIOs should consider

The following lists three actions CIOs can lead that reduce energy consumption and help transform sustainability ambition into action within their organizations:

1. Lead with action: Automate optimization in the data center to safely improve energy efficiency

There is an urgent need to reduce energy consumption, especially in data centers where electricity costs can account for up to 70% of their operating expenses. Improving energy efficiency is usually also aligned with an organization’s goals of minimizing its operational impact on the environment. And this is where the CIO can directly contribute to sustainability results in the organization. By incorporating IBM Turbonomic into their data center operations (as well as across their hyper distributed and multicloud environments), organizations are positioned to make an impact by optimizing resources through the consolidation of workloads. Turbonomic’s automated actions are designed to resize/reconfigure, move, scale and turn on/off resources to consolidate workloads onto less infrastructure, helping to reduce energy use while supporting application performance. The results of these actions show the potential for a significant reduction in data center operating costs and could deliver an ROI of 471% in less than six months. [1]

2. Set the standard: Ensure the business unit impact on sustainability performance is visible at the corporate level

What gets measured gets managed, such as tracking energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in data centers to help drive reductions at the operational level. This is even more impactful if the results are integrated into a corporate-level view to support activities like enterprise-level performance tracking and reporting. With the new integration between IBM Turbonomic and IBM Envizi ESG Suite, the CIO can readily communicate reductions in energy consumption and associated GHG emissions at the IT operations level to the corporate sustainability team. This new integration not only enhances business units’ ability to report operational data, it has the added benefit of feeding operational data into an enterprise system that tracks sustainability performance—helping to save time and resources. The CIO’s expertise and input can help shape an organization’s approach toward sustainability. Additionally, the increased engagement with the sustainability team may open opportunities for additional resources to be allocated to sustainability-related initiatives or projects.

3. Establish a company-wide data and architecture: Facilitate sustainability performance tracking at the enterprise level and support corporate ESG reporting

The CIO’s role in driving sustainable change extends beyond improving energy and emissions performance within their own business unit. As overseers of the organization’s technology infrastructure, the CIO can leverage their expertise to ensure the digital technology stack includes software that enables the accurate capture and management of ESG-related data. They can support executives of business units across the organization in providing tools and capabilities designed to improve efficiency in data acquisition, help verify data accuracy, and compile and analyze data—all important to support reporting that is transparent and substantiated. This is an area where the CIO can help drive outcomes that impact the entire organization.

In support of these efforts, IBM Envizi creates a system of record for companywide data that supports ESG performance management and streamlines ESG reporting. This helps to improve consistency and audit-readiness of data to make the reporting process more efficient and accurate. IBM’s Global Real Estate (GRE), for example, reported that they experienced roughly a 30% reduction in energy reporting software costs by replacing numerous tools with Envizi as a single, automated platform. Envizi also helped GRE to streamline energy reporting processes and gain better visibility into energy usage across their global real estate portfolio, enabling them to identify energy savings opportunities and prioritize energy efficiency projects.

Become a sustainability champion

Building a sustainability strategy requires mobilizing the entire organization, and data-driven decision-making at both the corporate and operational level is essential; the CIO has a key role to play in both aspects. They can tangibly contribute toward sustainability goals by addressing energy demand and the associated GHG emissions within their own departments and expand their influence across the entire organization. With specialist software like IBM Envizi ESG Suite and IBM Turbonomic, CIOs can have the tools they need to be a sustainability champion within their own organization.

Learn more about IBM Automation and IBM Sustainability.

[1] Source: Forrester Total Economic Impact of IBM Turbonomic Application Resource Management: A hypothetical composite organization described in the Forrester Total Economic Impact of IBM Turbonomic Application Resource Management Report, sponsored by IBM, was calculated to see a 471% ROI with use of the IBM solution.