Fujitsu: Green IT remains immature

Green IT remains immature across the US, UK, Australia and India and the industry is highly unlikely to offset its carbon emissions by 2020, according to a survey commissioned by Fujitsu.

The Green IT: The Global Benchmark survey of 600 CIOs and IT managers across the four locations is based on methodology created by Connection Research and RMIT University that looks at five areas (lifecycle, end user, data centre, low-carbon enabler, and monitoring/measuring) to create an IT Readiness Index.

The survey found UK was the best-performing country of the four countries surveyed, in part due to its stringent carbon-reduction and carbon-reporting regimen and high awareness of green IT. The United States ranked second, a function of the relative sophistication of IT use in the nation, followed by Australia, and India where end-user green IT is not widely implemented.

In a statement, Fujitsu’s global executive director sustainability, Alison O’Flynn, said while sustainable IT had been topical in recent times, “real action and progress had been slow”.

The findings mirror that of research conducted by analyst firm IDC. Australia was ranked in the bottom half of G20 nations for its ability to use ICT to reduce CO2 emissions, according to IDC's ICT Sustainability Index.

The analyst firm's index, which was launched to the public at the United Nations COP15 climate change meetings in Copenhagen, found the G20 nations – which account for over 70 per cent of all emissions – could cut CO2 emissions by 25 percent to 2020. Around 41.4 percent of this potential cuts could be made in the Asia-Pacific region. a score of 16. Tier 2 comprised the US, France, Germany, Brazil and the UK in that order.

There has also been considerable promotional work been put in by organisations such as ComputersOff – which ran a global Green IT Awareness week mid-year – and in the Federal Government space.