Firms Urged to Accelerate Efforts to Green Their IT Systems

08 December 2011

Businesses have been urged to develop green IT policies after a new survey revealed nearly half of the UK’s organisations fail to ensure that computers power down out of hours.

A survey of 1,000 IT staff, published today by OnePoll on behalf of software developer Faronics, found that 40 per cent of the UK’s private and public organisations have failed to develop green IT Strategies.

The vast majority of those organisations without a plan in place believe it would be too time-consuming, taxing or expensive to enforce a green IT strategy.

However, 40 per cent of respondents said they did have green IT policies in place, and nearly a third considered their businesses to be a “green” organisation in terms of IT efficiency.

Significantly, nearly half of those with green IT policies cited cost savings as the main driver, while just 18 per cent cited environmental concerns. Nearly a third said they were driven by corporate social responsibility or reputational concerns.

Businesses are urged to adopt simpler green IT measures such as powering down their desktops out of hours, arguing that recent research from energy giant E.ON revealed that £30.8m is wasted every day as a result of idle workstations.

John Lunt Managing Director at Certero comments “With PC’s making up to 40% of IT energy consumption, IT is the biggest drain in the office environment after lighting. Next generation PC Power Management solutions are allowing organisations in the Public and Private Sectors to automatically power down PCs resulting in lower energy bills and reduced CO2 emissions.

Sophisticated reporting features in PowerStudio® allows organisations to dynamically report on computer usage across the estate to produce easy to understand reports that can be updated to ensure maximum savings.”

Click here for more information