The European Commission (EC) has started a major consultation on how IT can help cut EU energy use by 20 per cent by 2020.

The EC is consulting industry, governments and academia, prior to a report next year outlining action needed and detailing possible regulation.

"Research and rapid take-up of innovative energy efficient ICT solutions will be crucial to lowering emissions across the whole economy," said Viviane Reding, commissioner for information society and media, who launched the consultation.

The IT industry must improve its own hardware efficiency, as well as enabling energy savings through the use of online services and remote working, the EC says in an accompnaying report.

“The objective of this activity will be to foster co-operation and understanding among all the actors involved in the energy and IT domains, including regions, cities and authorities,” it says.

The initiative aims to tackle the problem by sharing best practice internationally, and encouraging EU-wide uptake of technologies such as smart buildings, lighting solutions and metering.

Last month Viviane Reding proposed to increase the budget for IT and energy efficiency in the 2009-2010 EU work programme by 48 per cent to €40m (£31.5m).

Reducing energy consumption in the EU is considered the EC’s largest problem: energy use in the EU will double by 2030 if action is not taken soon, says the report.

Independent research last year by AeA Europe estimated that IT could directly enable up to 50 per cent of these reduction targets.

But a survey published last week by Forrester found that UK firms have yet to introduce green IT: almost 50 per cent had no environmental criteria in procurement practices, while 45 per cent had no green IT strategy at all.