ICTA Green IT aims at making Sri Lanka most sustainable sourcing destination

The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) aims at making Sri Lanka one of the most sustainable IT-BPO   destinations in the world, a senior ICTA spokesman said.  

This was stated when ICTA launched its Green IT initiative at Anthurium Salon at Galadari Hotel, Colombo Tuesday (22).  

A large number  of  personnel from several IT-involved companies including their Chief Executive Officers, Chief Innovation Officers, and Chief Operating Officers participated in the event. The event which included addresses by personnel in the Green IT sector from Sri Lanka and abroad evinced keen interest as shown by audience interaction with the panel of discussion.  

Commenting on the importance of making Sri Lanka as attractive as possible as a destination for IT-BPO by making it environmentally friendly ICTA Chief Executive Officer Reshan Dewapura said: “ Under Mahinda Chintana — Way Forward, one of the challenges the country has before it is the challenge to make it the knowledge hub of Asia.  The IT-BPO sector can contribute much towards meeting this national challenge. According to our national ICT five-year plan creating a two billion US dollar IT-BPO industry and a 100,000 IT related workforce by 2016 is envisaged. Making the country as much environment friendly as possible will go a long way in achieving the goal set before us”.  

Welcoming the audience at the launch of the Green IT initiative, ICTA ICT Investment and Private Sector Development Programme Head Fayaz Hudah said:  “ICTA aims at making Sri Lanka branded as one of the most sustainable outsourcing destinations in the world. As a step towards this companies are encouraged to obtain globally recognised accreditations such as ‘Carbon Neutralisation’, and ‘Environmental Sustainability’. This will go a long way in making their products competitive in the local and international market. In an effort to articulate this encouragement ICTA has introduced ‘Company Accreditation Grants’. These grants are provided by ICTA to meet consultancy and certification costs.  The grants could go up to a maximum of USD 15,000 per company”.

The objective of these grants is to make export oriented local companies become ideal companies to be selected by international companies for their IT-BPO work by becoming environment friendly. Companies become environment friendly when they reduce their carbon footprints.  A carbon footprint is the total set of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions caused by an organisation, event or product. A study has revealed that if every small business owner in the USA conducted one teleconference instead of a domestic business trip there would be a saving of $25.4 billion dollars in travel expenses and 10.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Companies are adjudged as valuable not merely on the basis of their financial performance but also their ecological and social performance. The bottom line of the ICTA’s Green IT initiative is the 3BL or TBL which is the abbreviation for ‘Triple Bottom Line”. This is also known as “people, planet, profit” or “the three pillars.

Carbon Neutral Company Asia Pacific Managing Director, Rani Virdee; Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Managing Director Prema Cooray and Green IT Practice Head Daman Dev Sood also addressed the audience.

For further information about participation in ICTA’s Green IT initiative and particulars about the grants visit www.icta.lk/