In an exclusive conversation Rachit Gehani, Head – Strategy & Initiatives at IIFL Home Finance, shares details about the green IT initiatives adopted by the company:
Ravi Lalwani: What are the 2 most impactful green IT initiatives in the organization during the last 12-18 months?
Rachit Gehani: IIFL Home Finance is actively participating in the electronic recycling program with its partnered vendor. Outdated electronic equipment and e-wastes are sent to our recycling partner where they are processed, refurbished, and resold to others, thus reducing e-waste for the planet. Further, virtualization & cloud computing has helped us reduce operating costs and improve server utilization. On premises, servers consume large amounts of energy and often operate far below capacity. Migrating to cloud computing has helped us to reduce both budget and power usage. We need not maintain infrastructure for costly server rooms and could focus our resources more effectively. In the last 2 years, IIFL has moved all its on-premises server infrastructure to cloud setup. This move has helped us to eliminate energy leaks, reduce operating costs and optimize server utilization.
Briefly describe 2 major opportunities that you see for green IT in the coming 1-2 years.
Today, organizations have started realizing the need and benefits for going green and investing in green IT solutions. Case studies have shown direct cost savings and improved public image for organizations investing in green efforts, besides reducing their environmental carbon footprint. Some of the opportunities we see here are providing a complete online journey for loan applications are 100% paperless, a sustainable hybrid model for staff working from home and office, adoption of cloud-based applications which are meeting business requirements, video-based KYC for customers, and central ecosystems with the integration of all systems.
When evaluating an IT solution, what green aspects do you look at during the evaluation?
When evaluating an IT solution, we always look for a cloud setup versus an on-premises setup. Cloud technology helps organizations to meet their objectives in terms of green IT. Further, while exploring hardware, we are inclined towards thin client workstations which consume 80% less energy than a regular desktop PC. This reduces carbon footprint and provides cost savings that can be further reinvested.
Share examples of noteworthy green initiatives by your partner companies.
We are active partners in electronic recycling programs and our outdated electronic equipment and e-wastes are sent to our recycling partner where they are processed, refurbished, and resold to other users. This effort helps to create a substantial impact to reduce the dumping of e-waste and carbon footprint for
the planet.
What are the targets and plans for such initiatives in the current FY and future?
IIFL HFL is strongly aligned to the concept of Green IT and looks forward to adopting green computing practices that will move the business forward while helping to create a sustainable environment. Our policies and programs are being restructured to adopt environment-friendly decisions in all domains across the organization.
We are already in the process of creating policies for work from home (WFH). WFH & telecommuting offers many business benefits. Employees spend less time traveling or driving to work, thus directly reducing carbon emissions. Videoconferencing and cloud storage solutions allow staff to collaborate from any location with ease.
Virtual Technologies – IIFL HFL has invested in virtualization technology for servers and desktops. One virtual server can host multiple services that otherwise required multiple machines, thus reducing the energy required to run and cool the physical servers.
Limiting Printing and Recycling Paper – IIFL HFL has enforced a paperless rule in offices. Online workflows are in place for all kinds of employee approvals. The use of online solutions such as Zoho Docs, Google Docs, etc, enables easy collaboration and sharing of information and thus eliminates paper from the office.
Reduce wastage – At IIFL HFL, we encourage people to consider the importance of reducing and recycling. We are also considering creating expectations and guidelines for employees to follow. The adoption of energy-saving settings on computers has reduced energy consumption significantly.
Use of Cloud technologies – IIFL has invested in cloud technologies where there is no need to deploy the hardware in organization premises to save energy
and cost.
