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Invest in Our Planet

By Donna Knapp For more than 50 years, billions of people around the globe have celebrated Earth Day every April 22nd. When Earth Day was first introduced in 1970 there were no legal or regulatory mechanisms to protect our environment. Today there are more but there is still work to do. This year’s theme, ‘Invest in Our Planet’, reminds us that businesses, governments, and each of us individually are equally responsible for protecting our increasingly fragile planet and adopting more sustainable practices. ITSM professionals are in a unique position to contribute to a green, prosperous, and equitable future. A great first step is to look at how we can minimize and manage e-waste. According to the United Nations E-Waste Monitor report, it is estimated that 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste are produced every year worldwide. Only about 17 percent of this waste is properly collected, documented, and recycled. Much of the remaining 83 percent of e-waste sits idle in homes and businesse

Sustainability and Resilience: What the World Needs Now

By Donna Knapp Look around and it’s likely that many of the organizations that you do business with, and perhaps the company that you work for (or want to work for), are demonstrating a commitment to sustainability. Sustainability has become a top priority for CEOs but what is it? In 1987, the United Nations (UN) defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”   Sustainability is not just environmentalism, although that is an aspect of it. Sustainability is a set of values that are shared by individuals and organizations worldwide who demonstrate their commitment to these values every day through their decisions and actions. Embedded in sustainability we also find concerns for social equity and economic development, as illustrated by the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals . In recent years much of corporate America, including many large multinationals, has signed on to support the sustainabl