Businesses and IT managers would go green if they had better knowledge of the help and funding they could get from government and vendors a new study found.

 

Conducted by the Institute of Systems Science (ISS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS), and in collaboration with industry and government partners, the Green IT survey was conducted over a six month period in 2008 and spoke to more than 300 businesses in Singapore across a wide spectrum of industries.

Richard Tan, Director of IT Services at ISS said the study showed that awareness of green IT in Singapore is still in its infancy with 54% of respondents saying that they are unaware of green IT and it benefits. There is good potential in the market for green solutions however as almost the same number said they would embark on green initiatives to reduce operational costs despite the fact that for 57% of those interviewed, there was no corporate requirement for IT to be green.

 

 

However Tan said, there needs to be better education of the available schemes to help businesses go green.

For example, he said that almost half of respondents said that they were unaware of the National Environment Agency's Energy Audit. Even more (67%) said that they were unaware of the Design for Efficiency scheme. This scheme aims to encourage investors in new facilities in Singapore to integrate energy and resource efficiency improvements into manufacturing development plans early in the design stage. "What is problematic," Tan said, " is that 16% said that they did not qualify for assistance when there is in fact no criteria. All they need to be is a Singapore registered company."

 

Businesses are open however to the option of going green. Tan said that more than 60% of businesses would be influenced by things like tax breaks or co-funding from the Singapore Government as incentives to go green. If incentives were offered, these businesses would use them to train staff in green IT or purchase energy efficient IT equipment or technologies. Even more encouragingly, 46% of businesses were willing to make an investment in energy efficient technologies if this could lead to future savings.

 

One of the recommendations in the report is the establishment of a Green IT Standards body to take the lead for Green IT in Singapore. The primary objective of the committee will be to establish Singapore at the forefront of green technologies by providing a consistent and coordinated approach to its development.