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Know where your IT footprint actually sits, and which levers are yours to pull.
Nine modules on the estate a CIO signs for: devices, data center, cloud, network, demand, procurement and disposal. Where the impact is created, what you control, how to run a reduction and prove it, and how to disclose it accurately. Every module works through the same three questions, what you decide, what you ask for, what you sign.
6h 50m
9
20 question
80%
Certification
Green IT for Leaders
How the course works
Concepts first, standards second
Boundary, materiality, baselines, targets and management cycles are taught as ideas. The frameworks that formalize them are named once, in Module 8, and dated. The rest of the course holds when a specification changes.
Written for four audiences at once
Every module sets out what you decide, what you ask for and what you sign, with a short note wherever a CIO, a CFO, a sustainability lead and a public-sector buyer would genuinely decide differently.
Two exercise modes
An in-course Northbridge decision you can finish immediately with the figures supplied, and the same exercise to repeat at work when you have your own.
What this course helps with
A large share of the footprint is on no bill
Manufacturing impact is incurred before a device is switched on and never appears on an energy invoice. In the worked estate it is 36% of the total — so an organization measuring electricity is measuring about two thirds and calling it the whole.
The biggest levers are signatures, not projects
Carbon that fell while energy did not. A rate reported without a total. A boundary that quietly excludes the largest component. Module 8 covers how each is caught.
Claims that do not survive review
Carbon that fell while energy did not. A rate reported without a total. A boundary that quietly excludes the largest component. Module 8 covers how each is caught.
Who this is for
- CIOs, CTOs and IT directors accountable for the estate and its suppliers
- CFOs, COOs and board members funding IT and answering for what is disclosed
- Public-sector IT leadership working within procurement rules
- Sustainability leads who need IT to produce figures that survive assurance
- No technical background and no prior course assumed
Related courses:
This course covers the estate and leaves workload depth to the practitioner track. For AI specifically, see Green AI for Executives. For starting and scaling a program, see Scaling Green AI and Software. For the data estate, see Green Data Practitioner.
What you will work with
The estate map
A first-pass footprint built in about two weeks from four sources you already have (asset register, cloud invoices, energy bills and procurement records), with every figure marked as an estimate or a measurement.
The refresh and disposal card
What one extra year of device life is worth, why the same policy can be wrong for servers, and the five things a disposal contract must guarantee.
The lever ranking and savings register
Impact against control and time to effect, one owner per ton, and the guard that stops a saving decaying once attention moves on.
The claim checklist
Metric, boundary, method, basis, date and data quality — plus the four ways an IT sustainability claim typically fails, and the single question that exposes an intensity change described as efficiency.
What you will be able to do
Course Lessons
The full course
01
Why Water, and Why You
Software feels dry, but the buildings it runs in use water for cooling, the electricity it consumes was made using water, and the hardware was manufactured with it. This module shows those three connections and closes the gap between the people who can see the water and the people who change the software.
module-01
02
The Four Layers: building, electricity, hardware, and the stress conversion
This module gives the three ways software uses water their proper names, as the draft SWI specification uses them, and adds a fourth layer that converts litres into how much each litre matters. It ends with the only line of arithmetic in the course.
module-02
03
Consumption and Withdrawal: used up vs borrowed
Water figures come in two kinds, and confusing them is the most common mistake in reading them. This module teaches the distinction between water used up and water borrowed and returned, and the rule that the two are never added together.
module-03
04
Reading a Water Number
This module teaches no calculations. It teaches how to look at any water figure, whether a provider report, a news headline or a colleague’s slide, and know what it does and does not say.
module-04
05
Stress-Adjusted Water: a liter is not a liter
The same liter counts for more where water is scarce and for less where it is plentiful. This module turns that idea into arithmetic using a published factor per place, giving the conversion layer its full treatment at foundation depth.
module-05
06
Small Things That Save Water
The earlier modules built a vocabulary; this one turns it into actions small enough to take this week, organised by role. None of them needs a water meter, a budget or permission to run a project.
module-06
07
Final Assessment
A final assessment of 12 questions - 80% to pass, 30 minutes, retake available.
Final Assessment
Assessment & Certification
Time to complete