Is Green the new black?

Green IT is becoming the catchphrase of almost every vendor looking to capture the attention of the industry. Everyone has a ‘Green’ story and is eager to advocate the benefits of adopting Green practices, dedicating resources to Green departments and making sure you know about it if a particular technology has Green benefits. This begs the question: where did this sudden urgency to make IT eco-friendly come from?

According to IDC’s Green IT Survey, more than 50 percent of customers consider IT vendors’ ‘greenness’ when selecting a supplier, one-third consider it ‘important’ to ‘very important’ that IT suppliers have Green offerings and almost 80 percent of executives claimed Green IT is growing in importance for their organisation. Then IDC disappointed idealists who had begun to envision an environmental revolution by revealing that the main driving force of Green IT is economic – merely another attempt to reduce operational costs.

So the Green IT movement isn’t motivated purely out of a sense of social responsibility (not a big surprise), like any industry the bottom line remains of foremost concern. The key differentiator however, is that it is rare when the interests of the environment coincide with those of enterprise. Organisations are therefore jumping on the Green IT bandwagon in droves – not only is there an opportunity to cut costs, there is also a bonus chance to shed the image of ‘resource guzzling self-interested corporation’ and seen to be associated with a global cause.

Simon Elisha, head solutions architect A/NZ for Hitachi commented on a shift in perception within the Australian channel relating to Green issues.

“There are a number of coincidental factors contributing to the Green IT movement, the main being pure cost savings,” he said. “However Green has significantly greater weight than it has had in the past and there is a viewpoint where many organisations want to present an ethical front. A reputation for being Green is becoming extremely important.”

Elisha claims the next stage of Green IT will be about quantifying environmental output and setting realistic targets to minimise an organisation’s carbon footprint.

“We will see firms set real goals with a carbon value and dollar value attached. Then they will assess the outcome and go from there,” he said.

Locally, Green IT took centre stage leading up to the federal election. As Kevin Rudd’s popularity grew, so did the probability that Australian enterprise would soon be purchasing carbon credits. The swift signing of the Kyoto Protocol following his instatement as prime minister simply contributed to an existing groundswell connected to Green IT.