Green IT benefits appreciated by firms, claims report

Posted by Steve Gaskill

New research has found that businesses are increasingly recognising the benefits of green IT.

A study by IT industry analyst IDC found that most companies are introducing green IT projects because of the reduction in energy use that they allow.

David Daoud, research manager for green IT at IDC, said: "This gives IT departments a great opportunity to contribute to corporate and national energy reduction goals through green initiatives like product selection, product design, and product lifecycle management."

In addition, the research discovered that other reasons for the adoption of green IT included environmental stewardship, lowered risk and liability, extra data security and a significant return on investment.

The report also recommended that IT departments do not introduce environmentally-friendly changes in isolation and encourage those in finance, marketing, legal and other areas to make their processes more sustainable.

Last month, Juliet Silvester, head of environmental programmes at Fujitsu, told the Green IT Expo 2009 that companies have to learn to improve the environmental performance of their whole organisation.