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The European Commission last week called on the IT industry to step up efforts to cut emissions, announcing plans for a wide-ranging green IT strategy designed to ensure economy-wide emission reductions of 15 per cent by 2020.

Announcing the new strategy, which is to be formally adopted in the second half of this year, commissioner for information society and media Viviane Reding said that while the IT sector had already made significant commitments to reduce its environmental impact, it still had “enormous untapped potential for saving energy right across the economy”.

“I would recommend to the IT sector to show the way for the rest of the economy by reducing its own carbon footprint by 20 per cent by 2015,” she said. “I see from the response of European IT companies to the Commission’s ongoing work that Europe is already well ahead in using IT for greening the economy.” Read more

Source: Business Green

Unemployment is up and spending is down in most homes and businesses across the country. In an economy where companies have to justify every dollar spent, a lot of people may assume that investment in green initiatives would be plummeting. But that’s not the case.

In some ways the lagging economy has done more for green projects than any amount of environmental encouragement could, because it’s forced business owners to acknowledge that going green is good for the bottom line.

Chris Mines, an analyst for Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., predicts that spending on green IT initiatives will actually increase in 2009. This includes investments in projects to improve the efficiency of data centers, optimise technology, and reduce technology-related energy use across businesses. Read more

Source: Business Green

Green IT systems have moved past the stage of marketing hype and are a genuine business imperative for many firms, according to a major new European survey which found that almost half of large UK IT departments now have a green IT strategy in place.

The survey of more than 450 Western European firms, each boasting more than 1,000 staff and at least one datacentre, was carried out by analyst firm IDC and found that IT departments in the UK and Germany had the most progressive attitude to addressing environmental issues with 46 per cent and 51 per cent respectively already claiming to have a green IT strategy in place.

The survey also revealed few signs that the trend is slowing down, with a further quarter of the 74 UK firms polled claiming they plan to implement a green IT strategy in the next two years. Read more

Source: Business Green

Computer company Fujitsu Siemens is going to start slapping a big, fat ‘green’ label on all its products that are more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

Fujitsu Siemens says the ‘Green IT’ label (pictured) will help flag up the green credentials of its computer products for customers.

The new green IT label appears on products manufactured from November 2008 and uses a three-tier system – ranging from one star through to the highest, three-star accolade. Read more

Source: Greenbang

Four out of five IT decision makers across government and corporate sectors said implementing green IT solutions in their organizations is important, with almost half citing positive reputation as the main benefits of adopting green IT, according to a new survey by CDW Corp.

Based on responses from over 1,000 IT decision makers, the survey found that 51 percent were hesitant to employ green IT technologies due to cost concerns, while 25 percent cited the complexity of implementing and maintaining green IT solutions. Twenty-one percent cited potential disruptions to current systems as a top barrier to adoption.

According to CDW, executives at the highest level tend to be the biggest proponent of green IT solutions, with 46 percent – including 73 percent of small businesses – citing the CEO, president, partner, or owner as the main supporter. Read more

Source: Environmental Leader