FICO Is Greening Our Credit, and the Business in General
by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California 
on 07. 3.09
Dealing with your FICO score can sometimes make you see red, but the company is trying to throw in some green. They launched a Sustainable Enterprise Initiative in 2008, with the goal to reduce the company's IT energy use by 50% and paper consumption by 80% by 2010. They've already made some serious headway on that goal.
To date, FICO has reduced energy consumption by 33%, print output by 50% and paper usage by 8 million pages.
8 million pages actually doesn't sound like a whole lot, considering how much paper a company like this must go through. But the figures appear to show some great progress, if they are indeed being measured correctly. We have to take it somewhat with a grain of salt since the numbers are coming from the company and not a third party auditor. They have their heart and wallet in the right place though:
The motivation behind SEI is the triple bottom line: addressing the interests of shareholders by reducing operational costs; addressing the company’s responsibility to the environment by reducing its carbon footprint; and making choices that foster positive social growth within the organization...FICO’s Sustainable Enterprise Initiative recognizes the company’s responsibility to both shareholders and the environment by reducing the company’s energy consumption and its carbon footprint without sacrificing the efficiency of business operations.
The initiative has helped FICO save through data center consolidation, pulling 24 data centers down to just 4 while still boosting virtualization, which helped to flatline their IT expenses and decreasing power needs for IT systems. The sustainability effort has reached employees, who are often able to telecommute or have access to better communication technology such as videoconferencing.
Sounds like we can welcome FICO into the greener 21st century.
Follow Jaymi on Twitter: @JaymiHeimbuch
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