Save the planet and the pennies

The environment is high on the list of many organisations’ concerns, and while the implementation of green IT systems is hardly a panacea, it can make a significant contribution to reducing your firm’s carbon footprint.

However, experts suggest that in many cases corporate posturing on environmentally-friendly IT is merely rhetoric, and lament the fact that few technology leaders have so far put their money where their mouths are.

Trewin Restorick, founder and director of Global Action Plan (GAP), an independent charity formed in 1993 dedicated to providing organisations with guidance on how to make environmental and financial savings, says the majority of UK businesses are still in thinking, rather than doing, mode.

“When we looked at it about six months ago, we were shocked at how little interest there was in reducing the IT carbon footprint, but that has changed recently,” he says.

“Even so, finding people who are actually doing stuff is still quite difficult ­ there are definitely people looking at it, but it is a long way from being mainstream.”

Euan Davis, principal analyst at Forrester Research, suggests that most organisations are still in the early days as far as green IT is concerned.

“However, the subject is extremely high on the agenda and is dominating a lot of discussions,” he says.

Research conducted by Siemens Financial Services last year backs up the the perspective and estimates that so far, only a quarter of UK firms have taken steps to even measure their carbon footprint, though two-fifths do have initiatives in place to reduce their emissions.

One thing that may be holding IT departments back is the lack of a clear strategy on how best to proceed. What is needed, say experts, is unequivocal, independent advice about the technologies and procedures that can be best used to reduce the environmental impact of computer, network and communications equipment.

GAP set up the Environmental IT Leadership Team (EILT) board in July 2007 to provide a forum for discussion. The EILT is wary that, currently, the only source of advice for companies looking to trim carbon emissions from IT comes from vendors with vested interests.

As a user the EILT, whose members include the British Medical Association, Sony, John Lewis, E.ON UK, the University of Cumbria and Lloyds TSB, aims to assess awareness of IT impact on the environment. The group also wants to cut through vendor technical and marketing jargon to offer practical advice on the course of action individual IT departments should take in addressing environmentalism.

If companies lack the knowledge to tackle green IT concerns, they certainly do not lack the impetus. The list of drivers for reducing the business carbon footprint is as long as it is broad.

Peer pressure plays as big a role here as anything else, says Restorick, who points to big corporations’ competitive posturing when it comes to adopting environmental IT policies.

A good example can be seen in retailer Marks & Spencer ­ when the company pledged last year to invest £200m in a wide ranging eco-plan that included reducing its IT footprint, the move forced a barrage of similar announcements from rival retailers keen to avoid unfavourable environmental comparisons.

Cost is another significant driver, more so as energy prices rise, but organisations are also having to face up to the possibility of a financially difficult period ahead.

“They have realised the benefits of saving money and being able to say good things about what it is doing for climate change,” says Restorick.

Demonstrating an ethical approach to the environment may also be the key to recruiting a new generation of graduates. Many businesses may struggle to take on high-quality people because potential recruits are concerned about the environment and are asking pointed questions about potential employers’ policies on the issue.

When professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) decided to research the future of people management in July last year, for example, it interviewed 2,739 new graduates from the UK, US and China to collate their views on what they expect from employers in the 21st century.

The study concluded that new graduates look for employers with strong environmental and social credentials ­and employees are expected to uphold corporate values and targets around the green agenda.

“Many organisations are keenly aware of how brands work in the minds of consumers, so we see companies such as Deloitte sponsoring game reserves rather than Formula One for instance,” says Forrester’s Davis. “It is also a way of attracting top talent and demonstrating an ethical stance, not just to customers and suppliers, but also to employees.”

And if the carrot fails to work, there is always the stick. The government has so far steered clear of nudging UK businesses into action through legislation or the imposition of industry guidelines, but that might change in the future.

The latest energy white paper from the Department for Business and Enterprise Regulatory Reform suggests the government cannot avoid enforcing more stringent rules at some point if it is to be sure of hitting EU emissions targets. Introducing laws on environmental policy that businesses must comply with is a possibility.

“They are talking about a cap on every single industry, with fines if so much tonnage of carbon is exceeded,” says Davis.

Even once an organisation accepts the requirement, or the ultimatum, to make its IT systems more environmentally friendly, the question of how best to approach the problem remains ­ and the EILT is engaged in research designed to answer that question.

While the need to make data centres greener by using servers and storage capacity more efficiently is well understood, for example, there is still some scope to define the best approach. Plus, organisations also need to examine the whole relationship between employees and IT, and look to change their behaviour regarding simple things such as turning off computers, monitors and printers when they are not in use.

How IT can be used more effectively to reduce employee travel is one aspect to be considered, says Restorick. “A lot of companies have seen videoconferencing as the answer,” he says. “But the kit just sits there and is hardly ever used, and if it is used it is used badly ­ there needs to be much more examination in that area.”

PwC has taken a lead in educating its employees on how to make best use of technology for environmental gain, including the use of communications systems to reduce travel and incentives that encourage workers to keep documents as soft, rather than hard, copies to save print resources.

The PwC human resources department also attempts to generate virtual social networks across the business and client database to minimise unnecessary travel.

Yet while most organisations have seen hardware as the main target for reducing carbon emissions, it is worth considering that software might be forcing the hardware to expend more power and cooling resources than might otherwise be necessary.