GITAM: a model for the acceptantce of green IT

Over the last decade, an increasing number of businesses are undertaking initiatives to reduce theirenvironmental footprint and improve their 'green' credentials. As information technology (IT) has permeatedmost, if not all, business processes and supply chains, it offers an important means to tackle the climateproblem. On the other hand, IT managers are pressed to reduce the total cost of IT operations and run energyefficient IT shops. Greening IT has therefore become one of the latest considerations to improve a business'environmental sustainability whilst reducing the cost of IT operations. A growing number of consulting reportsspeculate the benefits of greening IT for both IT vendors and mainstream businesses that use IT. While theopportunities and potentials of Green IT might be attractive, the extent of Green IT adoption and the actualrealization of the benefits that Green IT aficionados allude to remain unknown. Indeed, unless businessorganisations incorporate Green IT into their operations, the potential benefits of Green IT remain potentialand 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 ITfrom four distinct but interrelated perspectives. It posits that the technological, organisational andenvironmental contextual variables, dynamic Green IT readiness dimensions and strong order Green IT driverscan predict the intention and the breadth and depth of Green IT adoption.