By Green Channel Staff | Apr 23, 2009
The good news is that Asian businesses have retained most of their green IT projects, despite the recession.
The bad news, according to a Gartner
survey , is that the region still lags the US and Europe in support for green IT.
While 40% of US and 58% of European organizations said they were very likely to launch green IT projects in the future, only 15% of Asia-Pacific firms expected to do so.
Simon Mingay, a Gartner research vice president, also said that despite the apparent strength of support for green IT, for most organizations “2009 will be a gap year for green projects lacking a short-term cost-cutting and efficiency focus.”
Gartner survey of 620 people involved with their organization’s green IT programs found that the recession would not change or would even increase the priority given to most green IT projects in Asia and Europe.
Gartner found that 38% of Asian firms – along with 46% of European and 36% of US organizations – expected they would spend more than 15% of their IT capital budgets on green IT projects. Only 10% of respondents had no green IT projects.
“With the exception of Asia-Pacific, most organizations with no green IT projects at present anticipated addressing the issue,” Gartner added.
“The broad area of green IT covering areas such as carbon reporting and offsetting, videoconferencing and green procurement will continue to be a key pillar of IT strategy and architecture during the next ten years,” said research vice president Rakesh Kumar.
Gartner said CIOs need to break down budget silos and consider the wider cost-benefits if they are to help their organization exploit the financial benefits derived from green IT projects.
“The need to paint cost-cutting as green to make it interesting is gone,” Kumar added. “For technology and service providers, when considering positioning a solution as green, providers need to consider whether it will save organizations money in less than 12 to 24 months. If not, they need to focus on the green benefits within the context of a broader business case for sustainability.”
