Sustainable IT checklist - The Sustainability Management Wiki

Authors: Gustav Schmidt, Elisabeth Sawatzki
Edited by:
Last updated: June 23, 2026

Executive summary

Sustainable IT helps organizations reduce environmental impacts while improving operational resilience, cost efficiency, and regulatory readiness. The article explains that IT contributes materially to global emissions through end-user devices, networks, data centers, cooling systems, power supply infrastructure, and the resource-intensive production of hardware. It defines sustainable IT as the environmentally conscious design, procurement, operation, maintenance, and disposal of IT assets and digital services.

Existing sustainable IT checklists provide useful guidance but are fragmented. The ITGUYS checklist emphasizes organizational IT practices such as energy efficiency, e-waste management, procurement, governance, and employee engagement. IBM’s design-focused guidance highlights resource-efficient user experience, accessibility, media optimization, and collaboration between design and engineering teams. The Web Sustainability Checklist focuses on websites and digital products through findability, usability, performance optimization, and green hosting. However, these approaches offer limited support for maturity assessment, weighting, benchmarking, and progress tracking.

The proposed Sustainable IT Checklist addresses this gap by using Excel to calculate scores, enable transparent comparisons over time, and allow organizations to adjust category weightings to their context. It covers nine categories: strategy and responsibility, energy efficiency and infrastructure, hardware and lifecycle, software and applications, websites and digital products, data management and digital resources, employees and organizational culture, collaboration and responsibility, and artificial intelligence. The checklist also integrates green coding because software design, inefficient code, unnecessary functions, and unmanaged data can significantly affect energy use.

A maturity scale from 1 to 5 supports consistent evaluation, ranging from measures that have not been initiated to measures that are fully implemented, documented, and reviewed. Expert feedback improved the checklist by clarifying questions, consolidating overlapping items, expanding hardware and data center considerations, adding AI-related questions, and strengthening practical applicability. The article concludes that the checklist is useful for structured organizational assessment, but its results depend on subjective judgments, context-specific weightings, and regular updates. It should complement, not replace, detailed methods such as lifecycle assessments, energy audits, and impact measurements.

1 Motivation and background

“Sustainability is all about creating value for both your business and society. View sustainability as the ultimate win-win situation, ensuring the longevity and success of your business” – Steve Ashkin, CEO and President of the Ashkin Group.¹

This quote illustrates the growing importance of sustainability in an age characterized by digitalization, climate change, and social responsibility. It emphasizes that sustainable action is not only an ethical obligation but also a future-oriented business model.

Against this background, the information and communication technology (ICT) sector is responsible for an estimated two to four percent of global CO₂ emissions worldwide, similar to those produced by the aviation industry.²

These two to four percent of global CO₂ emissions are associated with three areas: end-user devices such as PCs, laptops, smartphones, and printers, but also network infrastructure such as the mobile network and data centers.²

Data centers in particular require more attention, as they account for around one percent of global electricity consumption. The trend is rising, especially with regard to cloud services, streaming, and artificial intelligence applications. However, it is important to emphasize that energy demand are not only attributable to server operation, but also to cooling systems and uninterruptible power supply systems.²

In Germany, data centers are also subject to regulatory requirements, such as the Energieeffizienzgesetz (EnEfG 2023), which sets minimum standards for efficiency and waste heat utilization.³

In addition to energy consumption during use, the production of information technology hardware is very resource-intensive. The extraction of rare earths and the consumption of water and energy contribute significantly to environmental pollution. Increasing digitalization through big data and artificial intelligence will further increase the demand for resources.⁴

But what does sustainable IT mean? Sustainable IT or Green IT refers to an approach in corporate IT that aims to minimize the environmental impact of IT operations and contribute to climate protection.⁵

The focus is on the environmentally friendly design, manufacture, use, and disposal of IT equipment. It also involves analyzing the ecological impact of all IT operations in order to identify potential for reducing CO₂ emissions and increasing energy efficiency.⁵

The goal is to optimize the IT infrastructure in a resource-efficient manner, maintain functionality, and achieve potential cost savings at the same time.⁵

Sustainable IT is relevant here, as it can contribute to cost reduction through energy efficiency and longer hardware life cycles. IT companies also gain a competitive advantage when they take sustainability strategies into account.⁶

The importance of sustainable development is also increasingly being addressed at the political level. Initiatives such as the European Green Deal and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive require organizations and companies to increase transparency and implement specific sustainability measures.⁷^,⁸

Despite the large number of empirical studies demonstrating the ecological relevance of information and communication technologies, there is still a lack of application-oriented tools for operationalizing sustainable IT practices.

Guandalini (2022) points out several research gaps in this area. In particular, there is a lack of comprehensive studies and generalizable frameworks. This results in limited research on concrete approaches that could support companies in integrating sustainability into digital transformation processes.⁹

In this context, the development of a “Sustainable IT Checklist” is proposed as a contribution that bridges the gap between theoretical concepts and practical implementation. Such a checklist bundles relevant recommendations for action, presents them in a structured form, and can thus contribute to the systematic implementation of sustainable IT strategies.

Furthermore, this work critically examines existing approaches to IT checklists and explains a conceptual framework as the foundation for the new checklist.

2 Existing checklists

First, to clarify the meaning of the term checklist, the following definition from Hales and Pronovost (2006) is used: “A checklist is typically a list of action items or criteria arranged in a systematic manner, allowing the user to record the presence/absence of the individual items listed to ensure that all are considered or completed” (p.231).¹⁰

Contrary to expectations, there are currently very few scientifically based checklists that explicitly address sustainable IT. The research identified only three relevant approaches. The first comes from ITGUYS, a London-based company that focuses on sustainable IT use in organizations.¹¹ The second approach can be found in a position paper by IBM, which addresses sustainable design and user experience in particular.¹² The third approach is the Web Sustainability Checklist (Pocket Guide), which focuses on the sustainability of websites and digital products.¹³ Although these three approaches provide valuable insights, their content remains fragmented and thematically limited, which further highlights the need for a more comprehensive and integrative checklist.

The first checklist provided by London-based company IT Guys is an example of a practical approach. It is divided into eleven main areas, each of which is operationalized by specific questions and criteria.¹⁴

It covers topics such as energy efficiency (e.g., energy-saving hardware, use of renewable energies), e-waste management (recycling, passing on used devices, remanufactured equipment), cloud and virtualization, sustainable procurement, software efficiency, and digital sustainability (data optimization, green web hosting, paperless office). Other areas of focus include employee engagement, IT governance and strategy, remote work, community and cooperation, as well as compliance and certifications (e.g., ISO 14001, ISO 50001).¹⁴

Particular emphasis is also placed on the role of external partners, for example in recycling or climate-neutral deliveries. The guide is primarily aimed at purpose-driven companies such as B-Corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises that want to make their IT more sustainable.¹⁴

By contrast, the IBM position paper focuses on sustainable design decisions, addressing content, user experience, visual design, and inclusion in particular. Key criteria include simplifying processes, reusing assets, optimizing user flows, clear communication, and accessibility. With regard to media design, it is recommended to use only necessary images and keep them as small as possible, to prefer vector graphics, and to integrate alt text. In addition, different devices, bandwidths, and usage contexts should be taken into account. For fonts, the recommendation is to reduce them to the bare minimum and optimize their sizes, while color concepts should be designed to be accessible and information should not be conveyed exclusively through colors. For videos, brevity, no autoplay, the provision of subtitles and preview images, and a clear assessment of benefits are required. In addition, the paper emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration with engineering teams in order to conserve resources, define sustainability goals, and assess environmental impacts, for example through the use of AI.¹⁵

The Web Sustainability Checklist focuses on the sustainable design and operation of websites and is divided into four key areas. The first area, findability, covers the application of SEO best practices (e.g., metadata, alt tags), the optimization of each page for a specific keyword, the clear and scannable structuring of content, and the provision of an intuitive information architecture, internal search functions, and high-quality backlinks. The second area, usability, emphasizes responsive design, the reduction of form fields, the avoidance of proprietary plugins, pop-ups, or autoplay media, and the implementation of usability tests. It also points out the importance of clear, meaningful buttons and the avoidance of so-called dark patterns.

In the area of performance optimization, a page weight budget of 500–750 kb per page, image compression, avoidance of resource-intensive elements such as carousels or video backgrounds, and optimization of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are required. This is supplemented by measures such as GZIP compression, content delivery networks (CDN), minimizing render-blocking scripts, short server response times (<200 ms), and reducing tracking software that prolongs loading times.¹³ Finally, the area of green hosting addresses the selection of hosting providers that use renewable energies (e.g., according to the Green Web Foundation Directory), possible website migrations, and the verification of CO₂ emissions with tools such as the Website Carbon Calculator.¹³ The analysis shows that the existing checklists each focus on different areas. The ITGUYS checklist concentrates on sustainable IT use in companies and covers topics such as energy efficiency, e-waste management, cloud solutions, procurement, and governance. The IBM position paper, on the other hand, focuses on sustainable design decisions and user experience, with an emphasis on criteria such as accessibility, resource-efficient use of media, and optimization of user flows. Finally, the Web Sustainability Checklist (Pocket Guide) is specifically dedicated to the sustainability of websites and digital products, with a focus on findability, usability, performance optimization, and green hosting. All three checklists can only be used by checking off the listed questions. One notable limitation of existing checklists is the lack of a structured evaluation system or consolidated results that can be derived after completion. Although the questions provide guidance, they do not enable a clear classification of maturity levels, nor do they allow for weighting or benchmarking to help organizations systematically assess their current status and track progress over time. However, other literature provides further approaches to this issue. For example, the Sustainable IT Playbook offers concrete frameworks and step-by-step guidelines for CIOs and technology managers. These include assessment frameworks in the form of maturity models for sustainable IT, as well as checklist-like guidelines on topics such as governance, infrastructure, applications, and end devices.¹⁶ The Capgemini Sustainable IT Report also presents a maturity framework and roadmap that are more strategic in nature but contain criteria similar to a checklist, with a focus on KPIs, governance structures, and leadership.¹⁷ Overall, these sources highlight both the growing importance of structured assessment approaches in the field of sustainable IT and the need to combine practical checklists with systematic scoring and maturity models in order to increase comparability, transparency, and strategic impact.

3 New tool: Sustainability IT checklist

In the following chapter, the new checklist is presented.

After careful consideration, Excel was selected as the basis because it offers several advantages.

Automatic calculation has the potential to facilitate the direct calculation of mean values, weightings, and other metrics. This makes the sustainability score meaningful.
Another advantage is transparency and comparability, as progress can be documented over the years and displayed in a bar chart or development curve.
The aforementioned weighting can be customized. The checklist offers a range in percent for the eight main categories, allowing companies to adjust the weighting. This is important due to the fact that a startup with limited hardware resources will evaluate differently than a corporation with its own data center. Nevertheless, the only crucial requirement is that the Sustainable IT score accounts for 100% of the overall calculation.
Lastly, it is easy to share, and it supports collaboration.¹⁸

3.1 Design

The categories are derived from existing frameworks and studies, including the Sustainable IT Playbook.¹⁶, Digital Sustainability.¹⁹, and the Capgemini study on sustainable IT practices.¹⁷ In line with this, the aspect of green coding has been integrated to reflect the efficiency and resource-related impact of software development and operation. This ensures that, in addition to strategic, infrastructural, and organizational dimensions, the importance of energy-efficient programming and the conscious design of digital products are also taken into account.²⁰

The inclusion of green coding in the checklist highlights the growing recognition that software development itself can be a decisive factor in digital sustainability. Inefficient code, superfluous functionalities, and unoptimized digital products contribute significantly to energy consumption and thus to the overall carbon footprint of IT. In contrast, lean programming practices, the establishment of metrics such as software carbon intensity, and the systematic optimization of websites and digital applications enable a noticeable reduction in resource consumption.²⁰

Furthermore, green coding closes a gap in many existing sustainability frameworks, which often focus on hardware efficiency, infrastructure, or strategic management, while the software level receives comparatively little attention. By explicitly including programming practices and the design of digital products, the checklist creates a more holistic approach that takes into account both the visible infrastructural aspects and the often invisible resource-related impact of software. This dual perspective not only increases the completeness of the tool, but also its practical relevance for organizations that want to reduce their environmental impact at all levels of IT.²⁰

Based on these conceptual foundations, the checklist is divided into eight main categories covering the dimensions of sustainable IT. Each category includes a series of key questions that operationalize the underlying principles and enable systematic evaluation.

The nine main categories are:

Strategy & responsibility with four questions. This examines the extent to which sustainability is explicitly integrated into IT or digital strategy. This includes consideration of the ecological footprint of software and IT projects, as well as the clear assignment of responsibilities for sustainable IT. It also examines whether external certifications and standards (e.g., ISO 14011, ISO 5001, Blue Angel, EU Code of Conduct) are used to systematically review sustainability.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Energy efficiency & infrastructure with four questions. The focus here is on questions relating to the energy efficiency of IT hardware (PCs, servers, storage and cooling systems, etc.), in particular whether it is certified by recognized organizations. In addition, consideration is given to whether sustainable data centers or cloud services are used, such as those powered by renewable energies or those with external certifications. Furthermore, internal guidelines for the energy-efficient design of the IT infrastructure are also taken into account.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Hardware & lifecycle with four questions. Here the durability, reparability, and resource conservation of devices are already addressed at the procurement stage. Established processes for the reuse and transfer of hardware (e.g., donation programs) are also recommended. In addition, there is the issue of proper disposal by certified recycling companies and the introduction of a Digital Product Passport (DPP) to create transparency about the life cycle of devices.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Software & applications with six questions concentrates on energy efficiency and resource conservation. Questions are asked about whether the software is tested and regularly maintained, whether functions are reviewed in terms of their usefulness and consumption, and whether there are key performance indicators for efficiency, for example in relation to CO₂ emissions. The reduction of unnecessary data stocks is also addressed.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Websites & digital products with four questions are evaluated in terms of resource efficiency. Key questions include whether they are technically optimized (e.g., small page size), resource-efficient in terms of content (compressed images and videos).¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Data management & digital resources with four questions examines whether data sets are regularly cleaned up, archived, or deleted. In addition, the use of analysis and tracking tools is critically scrutinized. The use of efficient storage and transmission solutions and the conscious handling of data flows and bandwidth are also important.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Employees & organizational culture with four questions looks at employee awareness and skills. Key questions include whether there are specific training courses or guidelines on sustainable IT and whether climate-friendly working models such as working from home or digital collaboration are encouraged. It also examines whether there are internal initiatives for sustainable behavior in digital contexts (e.g., Digital Cleanup Days).¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
Collaboration & responsibility category considers cooperation with external partners. It examines whether these partners are selected based on sustainability criteria, whether collaborations for sustainable digitalisation exist, and whether ecological and social aspects are integrated into digital innovation projects.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁴^,¹⁵^,¹⁶^,¹⁷^,¹⁹
The last category is artificial intelligence with four questions. These include the recording and evaluation of computing costs for training and inference, the consideration of renewable energies when selecting the location of data centers for AI applications, guidelines for the sensible use of AI, the observation of efficiency increases (e.g. model optimization, edge AI) and employee training on the sustainable use of AI.¹²^,¹³^,¹⁶^,¹⁸^,²⁰

The existing checklists lacked a legend that would enable consistent classification of the results. The maturity scale developed by Capgemini was therefore used as a basis for the evaluation and for the sustainability score legend integrated into the checklist in an adapted form. The evaluation legend differentiates the implementation status of individual measures on a scale from one to five. The range extends from “not initiated” (no measure in place, no planning) to “planned” (measure in preparation), “partially implemented” (individual activities implemented, but not systematically) and “largely implemented” (measure established) to “fully implemented” (measure fully implemented, documented, and reviewed).¹⁶^,¹⁷

The weighting of categories in the Sustainable IT Checklist pursues two key objectives. First, it enables a focus on core areas by highlighting particularly critical fields of action that contribute significantly to the ecological footprint and are crucial for the long-term anchoring of sustainability in IT.⁴^,²¹ Second, it promotes comparability and transparency, as uniform percentages allow for better assessment of organizations’ sustainability maturity and consistent documentation of developments over time.²^,⁷ In addition, a Sustainable IT score legend is introduced that translates the overall score into maturity levels. It differentiates between “no maturity” (1.0-1.99), “low maturity” (2.0-2.99), “medium maturity” (3.0-3.99), “high maturity” (4.0-4.49), and “leading practice” (4.5-5.0⁵). This allows the results of the checklist to be evaluated in a comprehensible manner, both in detail and at an aggregated level.¹⁷

3.2 Expert assessments

To enhance the quality of the checklist, feedback was obtained from two experts.

The first expert is Peter Seemann, specialist for Energy, Sustainability and Environmental Management at Kommunale Datenverarbeitung Oldenburg. He is DEKRA-certified CSR and sustainability manager.

The second expert is Hannah Herbst, Sustainable IT Consultant at REWION. Her expertise lies primarily in the areas of Green IT, IT Strategy, energy efficiency, and digital transformation.

Feedback was collected through email correspondence. The checklist was sent to the two experts as an Excel file via email. Feedback was also received via email and subsequently incorporated into the checklist.

The following figures illustrate the development process: the original version of the checklist, the version after feedback from expert I, and the final version after feedback from expert II.

It should be noted that numbers have already been entered in the figures so that functionality can be tested.

Figure 1 shows the interim status of the checklist in its original form, before the experts’ feedback was incorporated.

Figure 1: Sustainable IT checklist before expert consideration

During the first expert exchange, a number of comments were made on the content of the checklist, most of which were incorporated into the revised version. In the Strategy & Responsibility section, it was noted that the sub-items on external certifications and audits overlapped significantly. Accordingly, both were merged into a single question that explicitly takes into account external certifications with regular audits (e.g., ISO 14001, ISO 50001, Blue Angel, EU Code of Conduct). Several clarifications were implemented in the area of energy efficiency and infrastructure. For example, the definition of “hardware” was expanded (PCs, servers, storage, network devices, UPS, cooling, etc.) and the question regarding the use of sustainable data centers or cloud services was reworded. The question on the activation of energy-efficient device settings was also adjusted: Instead of asking for activation across the board, a distinction is now made as to whether corresponding guidelines or technical default settings exist. Data centers that require continuous operation were explicitly excluded.²²

In the Hardware & Lifecycle section, the question on procurement was revised to more clearly emphasize the criteria of durability, reparability, and resource conservation. In addition, ISO 14001 was added as an example of compliance with environmental legislation. For Software & Applications, the existing questions were rated as highly effective; in addition, the deletion of data that is no longer needed was included.

For Websites & Digital Products, one question was moved to the Software & Applications section, as its content is better suited there. The Data Management & Digital Resources section was rated as coherent and well structured in terms of content, so no changes were necessary here.

Finally, in the Employees & Organizational Culture section, “Digital Cleanup Day” was integrated into one of the questions as a concrete example.²²

Figure 2 now shows the intermediate status of the checklist in its revised form.

Figure 2: Sustainable IT checklist after expert I consideration and correction of the color scheme

During the second expert exchange, the checklist was rated overall as a practical and methodologically sound tool that already covers many dimensions of sustainable IT. The possibility of an annual application was particularly emphasized, as this makes companies’ progress and maturity levels systematically measurable. The broad coverage of important fields of action, i.e., the categories, was also rated positively.

The checklist thus provides an initial comprehensive view of sustainable IT that takes into account both technical aspects (e.g., energy efficiency, hardware) and organizational and cultural dimensions (e.g., employee training, collaboration). With regard to the wording of the questions, it was emphasized that the mixture of general questions (e.g. “Are there defined responsibilities?”) and very specific questions (e.g. “Is the page weight < 750kb?”) should be evaluated positively, as this addresses both governance issues and operational optimizations. At the same time, it was suggested that the questions should be clustered more according to “strategic measures” and “operational measures” in the future. This suggestion was not adopted, as the structure of the checklist is deliberately organized according to subject areas. This thematic order makes it easier for users to assign the questions and supports connectivity to existing sustainability frameworks, while a separation according to strategic/operational could have led to breaks in the logical structure.

The underlying rating scale of 1 to 5 was considered to be comprehensible and consistent with common maturity models. In addition, the annual repetition was emphasized as an important component for making developments visible. It was suggested that comment fields be introduced to supplement the quantitative feedback with qualitative assessments. Although this point was recognized as useful, it was not implemented, as the checklist should be kept intentionally compact and there is a risk that additional free text fields would limit manageability. Another topic was the weighting of individual questions.

It was noted here that different questions can have a very different scope (e.g. “ISO 14001 certification” versus “code minimization”) and therefore a differentiated weighting would make sense, for example based on the contribution to CO₂ reduction or social impact (e.g. working conditions, digital participation). This consideration was in line with the mechanism for flexible weighting already introduced after the first expert feedback, so there was no need for additional adjustments. In order to keep the analysis clear, only the nine main categories are weighted.

The topic of artificial intelligence, which is currently gaining importance in both science and practice, was particularly emphasized. Specific questions were proposed in this regard, which were all included in the checklist.

In conclusion, it was noted that the checklist as a whole provides a quick overview of key aspects of sustainable IT.

It is also important to note that both experts received the same first version of the checklist, but the first feedback was received earlier than the second. This meant that concrete adjustments could already be made after the first exchange, before the second feedback suggested additional consolidation and further development.²³

Figure 3 shows the final checklist.

Figure 3: Sustainable IT checklist after Expert II consideration

Overall, it is clear that the feedback from the experts contributed significantly to the clarification of the content and improved applicability of the checklist.

A second checklist (20xx) is also available for individual use, allowing for a more detailed consideration of weighting and evaluation.

Figure 4 shows the Checklist 20xx.

Figure 4: Sustainable IT checklist 20xx

3.3 Limitations

Despite its practical applicability, the developed checklist also has some limitations that must be taken into account when interpreting the results.

First, the evaluation of individual questions is based on subjective assessments, which can vary depending on the experience, knowledge, and perspective of the respondents. Second, the checklist is formulated in general terms, so that it can be used in different organizations. However, this means that there is a risk that industry-specific or company-specific characteristics are not adequately reflected. Third, the weighting of the categories poses a challenge: although ranges are specified that allow for individual adjustment, this flexibility means that results between organizations are only comparable to a limited extent.

Furthermore, the field of sustainable IT is characterized by a high degree of dynamism. New technologies and standards are constantly emerging, meaning that the checklist must be updated regularly to remain relevant. Furthermore, the checklist primarily assesses the maturity of measures but not their actual ecological impact. A high score therefore does not necessarily mean a correspondingly large reduction in CO₂ emissions. Finally, the checklist is limited in its depth, as it is designed for clarity and practicality and therefore cannot replace detailed analyses such as life cycle assessments or energy audits.

Another limitation is that only the main categories have been weighted so far. However, it would be advisable to also weight the individual questions in future studies in order to enable a more differentiated and precise evaluation.

For dynamic topics such as AI or regulatory developments (e.g. CSRD, EU AI Act), the checklist should be regularly reviewed and further developed to ensure its long-term relevance.

Nevertheless, current findings highlight the need for a practical checklist. This checklist translates fragmented findings into concrete action points. It creates a common language between research and practice and offers comprehensive criteria that can be applied in different organizations. At the same time, it takes into account the organizational perspective, which is often missing in previous research.⁹

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