With about one billion computers currently in use, information technology rightfully owns some of the blame for the world’s sustainability ills. The lifetime toll for a computer includes substantial resources for manufacture and delivery, then more energy consumed in home offices and companies. And, improper disposal of a computer can cause significant environmental damage. Yet for all this, IT will also take a starring role in sustainability solutions that meet the needs of the present without depriving future generations. IT’s beneficial role is the subject of the second in this two-part series.

The dramatic growth of the past half-century has led to higher living standards in much of the world, but has also resulted in urban sprawl, choking pollution and global warming. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, information technology (IT) has been at the heart of the transformation — driving change, infusing almost every aspect of life. So it’s hard to ignore IT’s role in sustainability, which is commonly defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In fact, according to experts at the W. P. Carey School of Business, IT is both the hammer and the nail — the problem and the solution. In Part 1 of a two-part series about IT’s role in sustainability, Knowledge@W. P. Carey looks at how IT is the problem. In Part 2 we’ll explore the solutions IT offers.