In a recent survey of 1500 responses and 758 organisations, Sun found that almost two thirds have environmental practices in place but its the IT departments that are lacking "green plans".
In their recent survey, Sun notes that over 20% of energy consumption is due to IT, although only 27% of respondents actually have green IT plans in place. 37% of respondents believed that eco responsibility was "very important" and 2% said it wasn't a concern for them. Most worrying is the fact that 22% of respondents aren't going to even look at greening their IT department!
Sun's respondents note the four key areas that would help them become more green are:
- Energy efficient technologies - 80%
- Power and cooling systems - 63%
- Systems virtualisation - 60%
- Data centre consolidation - 48%
So why is that IT departments lack green plans? There are a multitude of reasons....In a lot of small-medium organisations the green push has typically been through simple programs of recycling toner and reducing paper waste - something that was generally the domain of the office manager, not the IT manager. And considering the majority of green IT departments were in larger organisations, it would be fair to say they have more resources and skills enabling them to commit to eco programs. However awareness is a key factor - Sun customers would be more aware than your average customer, considering Sun's extensive eco programs and products - so where does this leave other companies? Probably with a very expensive electricity bill!
