Sustainability in ICT procurement and sourcing
Sarras, Jari (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202505069245
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202505069245
Tiivistelmä
Climate change necessitates that companies enhance their efforts towards sustainable operations and business practices. Concurrently, the energy consumption of ICT is escalating, particularly due to the proliferation of datacenters built to meet the growing capacity demands of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and IoT. Despite this, sustainability is often overlooked in ICT investment decisions.
The goal of this thesis is to develop guidelines to assist both private and public organizations in incorporating sustainability into their ICT investment decision-making criteria. The focus is on the procurement of datacenter services, laptops, and software, as these are the most common ICT products in both sectors. The thesis excludes sustainable procurement of mobile devices, servers, and network equipment, although they also contribute to CO2 emissions and impact sustainability.
The theoretical framework encompasses ICT procurement processes and sustainability factors, guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The research commenced on November 29, 2024, and concluded in May 2025. The research method was a constructive research method. Data collection involved interviews with ICT procurement managers to gather insights on current sustainability practices and feedback on the developed guidelines.
The findings indicate that sustainability could be more prominently considered in ICT procurement decisions, hindered thus far by the complexity of the topic. The developed guidelines offer practical and concrete requirements for sustainable procurement of datacenter services, laptops, and software. These requirements can be used alongside other procurement criteria and are modular, allowing for application in various contexts, such as SaaS solutions.
Following pilot usage, minimum values for requirements will be added, and the scope will be expanded to include sustainability requirements for mobile devices and network hardware.
The goal of this thesis is to develop guidelines to assist both private and public organizations in incorporating sustainability into their ICT investment decision-making criteria. The focus is on the procurement of datacenter services, laptops, and software, as these are the most common ICT products in both sectors. The thesis excludes sustainable procurement of mobile devices, servers, and network equipment, although they also contribute to CO2 emissions and impact sustainability.
The theoretical framework encompasses ICT procurement processes and sustainability factors, guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The research commenced on November 29, 2024, and concluded in May 2025. The research method was a constructive research method. Data collection involved interviews with ICT procurement managers to gather insights on current sustainability practices and feedback on the developed guidelines.
The findings indicate that sustainability could be more prominently considered in ICT procurement decisions, hindered thus far by the complexity of the topic. The developed guidelines offer practical and concrete requirements for sustainable procurement of datacenter services, laptops, and software. These requirements can be used alongside other procurement criteria and are modular, allowing for application in various contexts, such as SaaS solutions.
Following pilot usage, minimum values for requirements will be added, and the scope will be expanded to include sustainability requirements for mobile devices and network hardware.