We need to be red hot on green issues

Glick: Environmentally friendly products should plug into a wider plan, determined by best practice, but there is so little best practice available

IT leaders are becoming more aware of the importance of a green IT strategy ­ but many are struggling to find the right advice and best practice to put into action.

There are plenty of vendors whose products can help improve users’ energy efficiency ­ but there are few sources of independent advice on how to put in place a meaningful technology programme to improve your environmental credentials.

Building the business case for green IT is essential ­ and the best place to find out what to do is from peers.

To help make this happen ­ for a few of our readers at least ­ Computing last week hosted a roundtable debate in association with VMware and Intel, appropriately enough at Kew Gardens, to discuss the experiences of a number of leading organisations.

Several common concerns quickly appeared, but two in particular seemed to resonate around the table.

Everyone knows that IT has a green problem. Trewin Restorick, director of environmental charity Global Action Plan, was on the panel and presented recent research that said 86 per cent of IT departments do not measure their carbon footprint.

The response of the IT leaders present was that there are no recognised ways to measure the environmental credentials of their operations ­ and even if there were, how do they know if they are good or bad?

Until measurement becomes standardised, it will be impossible to benchmark your organisation ­ which should be a key factor in determining a green strategy.

The second concern is the difficulty in finding best practice. Every vendor, it seems, now tells us it is a green supplier, when in reality they have simply realised that their products can help you to reduce your energy use. That is not a green strategy ­ environmentally-friendly products should plug into a wider plan, determined by best practice, but there is so little best practice available.

There is still much to do. One delegate, from a major global financial services firm, said that users in his organisation are told to leave their PCs on overnight and at weekends in case its outsourcing supplier needs to update software patches. Others nodded in agreement.

Awareness of the impact of technology on the environment is growing. If IT leaders do not embrace green computing, we will all be under fire before long.

What do you think? Read my blog at: http://editor.computing.co.uk