Impact of Pressure for Environmental Sustainability on Grid Assimilation – Empirical Results from the Financial Services Industry

Abstract

Due to the significant increase in IT-related power consumption and the resulting higher CO2 emissions, Green IT has gained considerable attention in industry and society in recent years. Green IT as an engineering paradigm encompasses the multi-faceted, global effort to reduce power consumption and the promotion of environmental sustainability. Due to several similarities between Green IT objectives and the environmental benefits of Grid technology, this article provides empirical evidence from the financial services industry emphasizing that Grid technology is capable of reducing the environmental impact of IT hardware. Furthermore, the article analyzes the extent to which pressure for environmental sustainability as well as different types of institutional forces impact on the intention of enterprises to use Grid technology as a means to reduce energy consumption of IT hardware, which is one of the key Green IT objectives.