Drivers for Green IT

John Mazenier, Environmental Skills, The Channel
September 2007 

The debate surrounding climate change and our overall impact on the environment is high on the business and political agenda. And there’s more awareness then ever about what organisations can do to “green” their operations and reduce their impact on environment.

Whilst some have argued that eco-responsibility is simply hype and that mist companies don’t have any actual plans in place, a customer survey recently conducted by Sun Microsystems suggested otherwise. For example, 60 per cent of respondents stated that they already have environmental/green practices in place.

The study of more then 1,500 Sun customers, from 758 organisations in Australia and New Zealand, was commissioned to provide insight into attitudes towards, and initiatives to progress, eco responsible business and IT practices.

Impacting the bottom line
What businesses are beginning to realise is that it is not just the environment that benefits, it is also the bottom line. Given that IDC predicts that by 2008 data centre users will spend more on power and cooling their systems than on server technology, looking at technologies that reduce power should be high on the business agenda.

At large companies, 20% energy costs can typically be attributed to IT – from the data centre, to the PC. Skeptics will argue that it’s futile or indeed impossible to green power-hungry facilities such as data centres. In Sun’s experience however, a medium size company can save hundreds of thousands in energy costs through eco technology. There’s no doubt that reducing power consumption, lowering carbon emissions and saving costs is beneficial for business, as well as the environment.

Therefore it’s no surprise the survey shows that the ability to reduce power was the main driver behind the uptake of green technologies. In addition, more than two thirds of those surveyed said their IT department evaluates a vendor’s green policy before investing.

Key findings of the survey:

Eco responsible business practice (company wide)

- 60% of respondents have environmental/green practices already in place
- 37% believe that eco responsibility is very important, 23% important and only 2% sat that it is of no importance to their organisation

Green IT department

- 27% have dedicated green IT  plans in place
- 21% plan to deploy eco responsible technologies in the next 12 months
- 30% are long into it
- 22% have no plans at all

Drivers for uptake of green technology (multiple answers allowed, top 4 below)

- Reduce power consumption 75%
- Lower costs 73%
- Lower carbon emissions and environmental impact (e.g. recycling) 56%
- Improved systems performance and utilisation 55%

Strategies that would help green the IT department (multiple answers allowed, top 4 below)

- Energy efficiency technologies 80%
- Power cooling solutions 63%
- Systems virtualisation 60%
- Data centre consolidation 48%

The findings highlight that many businesses are already looking at ways to reduce their carbon admissions and technology is a key focus area.

IT currently accounts for around four to five per cent of the world’s energy use, and this is growing with the ever increasing demand for high performance consumption, as well as increasing storage requirements. Companies are looking at greening the IT department to reduce this impact but also reduce the cost associated with energy and real estate.

It is encouraging that many businesses have green initiatives in place but it is not surprising that taking the next step and introducing green technology, is lagging behind. Companies need to act now, as for a large organisation it can take up to 18 months to green the IT department and data centre.

What this means for the channel community is that there is a significant opportunity to help organisations shape their green IT practices. From energy efficient server and storage technologies to desktop solutions such as clients computing, there are a number of technologies available that can deliver attractive savings in both power and costs.