June 27, 2007

UK businesses slow to reduce carbon footprint

by Jan Harris

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According to the Green Technology Initiative, UK businesses are not taking appropriate measures to reduce the carbon footprint of their IT activities and many are pursuing unsustainable IT strategies.

Information Technology accounts for approximately 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but in its recent Green IT Awareness Survey, the Green Technology Initiative found that over 79% of respondents did not associate power costs to hardware spending of IT budgets.

Over 95% of respondents had no idea of how efficient their IT systems were because they had no method of measuring their efficiency.

The survey covered over 100 IT managers, consultants, network and general managers during April and May 2007.

According to the Green Technology Initiative, the high rate of IT growth means that the current situation is unsustainable.

Although systems efficiency is the cheapest and easiest way of reducing carbon footprint, this was not part of 90% of the respondents’ green strategy, as businesses tend to expect suppliers and the government to take responsibility for making IT greener.

The survey did however find that more companies are aware of the importance of switching off a system that is not in use.

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