By Robert Clark | Nov 26, 2009
Research firm IDC says it has created an index that ranks a country's ability to use information and communications technologies (ICT) to reduce CO2 emissions.
The index ranks the countries that make up the G20, who between them account for more than 70% of global GDP and carbon emissions.
“IDC believes that the ICT Sustainability Index will help these countries prioritize ICT investments in major sectors, such as manufacturing, transport, and housing, as part of their overall climate change strategy,” IDC said.
ICT-based technologies have the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 25% in the G20 countries, compared with 2006 baseline emissions, IDC concluded after a recent study.
“We believe that we have been able to normalize economic, energy, and ICT profiles to determine a country’s ability to use ICT to reduce its CO2 emissions. Countries with diverse characteristics such as Australia, Brazil, Canada , China and the United States can at last be equally compared to each other,” said Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC's Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research.
He said the G20 countries have been ranked into five tiers, based on their scores. “While everyone wants to be in a higher tier, we believe that it is more important to understand why each nation is in a particular tier.”
Six of the G20 nations come from Asia/Pacific, including Japan, China, and India.
Energy usage remains the leading driver for ICT executives to undertake any sustainability initiatives, said Roberta Bigliani, research director at IDC Energy Insights.
“It’s important for the G20 nations to have a clear road map of what technologies they should be investing in since almost 65% of all ICT executives believe that energy impacts their ability to be green,” she observed.
