ITIL 4 Sustainability flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Sustainability (ITIL 4)

The capacity of a service or product to support environmental, social, and economic outcomes across its lifecycle, balancing ecological impact against the value delivered and the cost of achieving it.

Environmental dimension

The sustainability dimension covering emissions, energy consumption, water and resource use, waste, and end-of-life disposal of hardware and digital assets.

Social dimension

The sustainability dimension covering labour conditions, equity, accessibility, health and safety, data ethics, and the impact of services on communities and workers.

Economic dimension

The sustainability dimension covering financial viability, affordability, long-term cost of ownership, and the resilience of the service provider's business model.

Scope 1 emissions

Direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned or controlled by the organization, such as fuel burned in company vehicles or on-site generators.

Scope 2 emissions

Indirect emissions from purchased electricity, heat, steam, or cooling consumed by the organization, calculated using supplier or market-based emission factors.

Scope 3 emissions

All other indirect emissions in the value chain, including purchased hardware, cloud services, business travel, logistics, and use of sold products.

Four dimensions of service management

Organizations and people, information and technology, partners and suppliers, and value streams and processes; sustainability requirements must be addressed in each dimension.

Service value chain

The six ITIL 4 activities (plan, improve, engage, design and transition, obtain/build, deliver and support) through which value is co-created; sustainability criteria are embedded as decision gates.

Guiding principle: focus on value

Sustainability interpretation: define whose value counts, including environmental and social stakeholders, and measure outcomes rather than intentions when prioritizing sustainability work.

Guiding principle: start where you are

Sustainability interpretation: baseline current emissions, energy use, and social impacts before acting, and reuse existing data, tools, and reporting rather than building parallel systems.

Guiding principle: think holistically

Sustainability interpretation: consider the whole system, including suppliers, users, and end-of-life, so that improvements in one area do not shift burden elsewhere.

Guiding principle: optimize and automate

Sustainability interpretation: remove waste from value streams and use automation to reduce energy, travel, and material consumption while maintaining or improving service outcomes.

Lifecycle thinking

Assessing sustainability impacts at every stage from plan and design through operate and retire, recognizing that most footprint is fixed by early design and procurement choices.

Use-phase energy

Energy consumed while a service is operating, including data centres, networks, and devices; often the largest controllable component of a digital service's footprint.

Embedded carbon

Emissions released during manufacture, transport, and disposal of hardware; reducing device turnover and extending asset life lowers this component.

E-waste

Discarded electrical and electronic equipment; managed through reuse, refurbishment, certified recycling, and secure data destruction at the retire stage of the lifecycle.

Circular economy

An economic model that keeps materials in use through reuse, repair, remanufacture, and recycling, reducing demand for new resources and lowering lifecycle emissions.

Sustainability baseline

A quantified starting point of current environmental, social, and economic performance, used to set targets and demonstrate improvement over time.

Sustainability KPI

A measurable indicator of sustainability performance, such as energy per transaction, carbon per user, hardware reuse rate, or percentage of suppliers with verified targets.

Sustainability reporting

Structured disclosure of sustainability performance and targets to stakeholders, often aligned to recognized frameworks and assured by independent review.

Supplier sustainability criteria

Requirements placed on partners and suppliers, such as emissions disclosure, energy sourcing, labour standards, and take-back commitments, evaluated during sourcing decisions.

Sustainable procurement

Including environmental and social criteria alongside price and performance when selecting goods and services, so lifecycle impacts are considered at the point of purchase.

Green software practices

Design and engineering choices that reduce energy and carbon per unit of work, including efficient algorithms, right-sizing, demand shifting, and avoiding unnecessary data processing.

Energy efficiency metric

A ratio of useful output to energy consumed, such as work per kilowatt-hour or transactions per watt, used to compare design and configuration options.

Carbon intensity of electricity

The emissions per unit of electricity consumed, varying by time and location; shifting flexible workloads to low-carbon periods or regions reduces Scope 2 emissions.

Cloud shared responsibility

The split of sustainability duties between provider and customer: providers manage facility efficiency, while customers control workload design, sizing, and usage patterns.

Demand management

Forecasting and shaping demand so capacity, including energy-intensive resources, matches actual need, avoiding idle infrastructure and overprovisioning.

Sustainability trade-off decision

A recorded decision that accepts a sustainability gain in exchange for a defined impact on cost, risk, utility, or warranty, approved by the accountable owner.

Continual improvement for sustainability

A repeating cycle of baseline, prioritize, target, act, and review that uses plan, do, check, act to raise sustainability performance of services over time.

Sustainability in service design

Embedding environmental and social requirements, such as energy budgets and material choices, into design and transition so they are testable before go-live.

Digital sufficiency

The principle of providing only the data, devices, and processing needed for the outcome, avoiding surplus collection and storage that consumes energy without adding value.

Sustainability governance

The roles, policies, and decision rights that set sustainability objectives, allocate resources, approve trade-offs, and hold service owners accountable for reported outcomes.