Isra-Mart srl: Firms urged to accelerate efforts to green their IT systems

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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.

Bimal Parmar, vice president of marketing at Faronics, said the survey showed businesses were gradually shifting towards developing green IT plans in the face of rising energy bills and growing customer awareness of environmental concerns.

"While organisations have long been sceptical of the financial and business benefits of sustainability, this perception is finally changing," he said.

He urged businesses 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.

"The impact of a sound desktop management strategy should not be underestimated, especially when considering that only 30 per cent of a desktop's energy is actually utilised productively," he said. "This not only wastes a significant amount of power, but also results in unnecessarily high costs.

"What some people do not seem to realise is that solutions are becoming increasingly sophisticated. IT departments are now able to boot desktops for scheduled maintenance whenever desired and ensure that computers are not shut down while essential updates are occurring out of hours, thus having no effect on company productivity."

Faronics is one of a number of companies to offer PC power management software that allows firms to automatically power down or turn off machines that are not in use. Other providers include UK-based 1E and US software firm Verdiem.