CIO's Green IT Survey: Cost Cutting, Social Responsibility Drive Environmental Moves
An exclusive CIO survey of 280 executives show that most don't measure the impact their organizations have on the environment.
Mon, March 17, 2008
CIO — IT executives are slowly but surely going green (see, The Greening of IT.) An exclusive survey of 280 IT executives shows two primary factors driving change: cost-cutting efforts related to energy efficiency; and efforts to be more socially responsible corporate citizens. The survey also found that most organizations do not measure the impact their work has on the environment.
More detailed results follow.
Corporate social responsibility programs on the rise but there's room for improvement.
Over half of IT executives surveyed (55 percent) say their organization has at least one corporate social responsibility program that includes "green" initiatives dedicated to environmental sustainability while one quarter are beginning to address the issue. But only half (54 percent) of respondents report that their organizations frequently participate in product take-back/recycling programs from vendors, or dispose of IT equipment in an environmentally safe way, 21 percent take this action only occasionally and 20 percent seldom or never take advantage of vendor recycling programs or dispose of IT equipment in an environmentally safe way. Additionally, one third (32 percent) of respondents seldom or never take into account whether or not the products they will purchase are energy efficient or produced and distributed using sustainable processes.
Social responsibility and reduced costs primary drivers for "greening" IT operations.
IT executives cite social responsibility (38 percent) and reducing operational costs (37 percent) as primary drivers for "greening" their IT operations. Activities organizations are currently undertaking or planning to implement to make their IT operations more environmentally friendly include reducing server power consumption (64 percent), educating users to turn off equipment at night (57 percent), configuring desktops not in use to enter sleep mode (49 percent) and upgrading or reconfiguring data center cooling infrastructure for improved efficiency (44 percent). Of the 63 percent of respondents needing to be in compliance with state electronics recycling laws, nearly all (92 percent) say their organization is currently in compliance with the required regulations.
Environmental sustainability goals and measurements are lacking.
Most companies still aren't measuring the impact their organization has on the environment. 61 percent of respondents report their organization doesn't currently measure its carbon footprint and only 16 percent are getting ready to do it. Of the nearly one quarter of companies that do measure their carbon footprint, only 11 percent include IT in the calculation. Only 24 percent of IT executives surveyed report that their organization monitors IT-related energy spending while half (46 percent) say their organizations have no environmental sustainability goals for IT. Not surprisingly given the lack of measurement, only 20 percent of IT executives surveyed have metrics to document their progress toward "greening" their IT department.
