I recently attended Green IO London 2025 to learn about the state of Green technology, IT practices and how that could relate to my day to day work. This includes supporting organisations to improve their services for their users in a world that is placing more and more emphasis on our effect on the planet.
While I went into the conference thinking the day would be fully about intricate technology considerations, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the discussions went much broader than that, touching on not only technology, but also ways of working, strategies for organisational buy-in and how AI and Green tech can coexist.
Key takeaways
1. Tracking data on Green IT and organisational sustainability goals doesn’t tell the whole story
Data gives a great view into the current state of an organisation’s emissions and how sustainable they are as a whole, but it doesn’t tell the story of what organisations or individuals can do to act on and improve that data. As designers and consultants, we have the opportunity to help organisations and teams understand and plan for improvement, creating tangible outcomes that go beyond the data and start to make a real impact on core processes in teams and organisations.
2. Real impact comes after teams are informed, engaged and willing to drive change
Individuals can only get so far when it comes to impacting change within organisations – they can start initiatives, but often struggle to scale those initiatives across an organisation, and sustainability is a multi-faceted issue that benefits from the diversity of perspectives, roles and expertise. No single discipline or role can solve all the challenges that come with embedding sustainability into an organisation. When individuals collaborate across disciplines, departments or projects, they can pool resources and ideas, share successes and provide support when challenges arise.
3. Senior leaders need to prioritise and socialise sustainability change in their organisations now
Effective support from senior leadership means going beyond simply prioritising the work. Leaders need to proactively connect team members working on Green initiatives to the members of the organisation that enable change, provide the necessary time and resources to embed change, and support teams by sharing and communicating the work to both the organisation and communities outside of the organisation.
4. FinOps and finance teams are key allies in making practices more sustainable
It is clear now that being more sustainable can result in cost savings by: right-sizing servers and other technologies, auditing employee devices and ensuring the minimum needed are used and taking a look at processes that involve shipping (for example, sending employees their devices) to find more sustainable shipping options. By giving sustainability a monetary value, we can make environmental responsibility a compelling business case.
5. Government bodies are putting more emphasis on sustainability, but it’s only scratched the surface
I was happy to see so many representatives from various areas of the UK government — DWP, DEFRA, GDS and DBT all represented in some way in talks or panels. It was clear that they are making sustainability a priority, but, like most organisations, are still working to truly embed that priority throughout. DWP in particular spoke in depth about the workshops they have developed and ran based on the Fresk framework — helping teams work through a 90 day action plan for their organisation, service or product. However, even they acknowledged that it is only the start and there is more work to be done to truly embed sustainability as a priority.
Final thoughts
My biggest takeaway from Green IO isn’t about any particular piece of technology or set of standards. It is that the challenge of sustainability is fundamentally organisational and cultural. We need to move past talking about tracking carbon emissions and other metrics and focus on how we embed sustainable thinking and practices in every layer of an organisation. Data tells us the current state, but sustained improvement requires green practices to be treated as a constraint as critical as security or performance.
Achieving this requires two key actions. First, there must be education and training to provide every team member with the knowledge and skills to understand their impact and advocate for sustainable practices in their specific domain. Second, any grassroots efforts need to be met by proactive senior leadership, who must actively prioritise and communicate a green mandate and ensure team members are genuinely empowered to create change.
This was my first time attending Green IO, and I learned so much in a short amount of time. Big thanks to the organisers and presenters for bringing together so many passionate people about this topic.
