GITAM: A Model for the Adoption of Green IT

Over the last decade, an increasing number of businesses are undertaking initiatives to reduce their environmental footprint and improve their “green” credentials. As information technology (IT) has permeated most, if not all, business processes and supply chains, it offers an important means to tackle the climate problem. On the other hand, IT managers are pressed to reduce the total cost of IT operations and run energy efficient IT shops. Greening IT has therefore become one of the latest considerations to improve a business’s environmental sustainability whilst reducing the cost of IT operations. A growing number of consulting reports speculate the benefits of greening IT for both IT vendors and mainstream businesses that use IT. While the opportunities and potentials of Green IT might be attractive, the extent of Green IT adoption and the actual realization of the benefits that Green IT aficionados allude to remain unknown. Indeed, unless business organisations incorporate Green IT into their operations, the potential benefits of Green IT remain potential and not reality. Currently, there does not appear to be a model to systematically investigate Green IT adoption. This paper proposes such a model called the Green IT Adoption Model (GITAM). The model defines Green IT from four distinct but interrelated perspectives. It posits that the technological, organisational and environmental contextual variables, dynamic Green IT readiness dimensions and strong order Green IT drivers can predict the intention and the breadth and depth of Green IT adoption.