Slow progress towards green IT

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Barely a third of companies have any plans to move towards green computing.

Research carried out by storage vendor Onstor found that only 36 per cent of organisations have projects in place at the present time to be more environmentally friendly with their computing needs. Another 29 per cent of companies said they were talking about green initiatives while a further 29 per cent said that there had been no discussions to date about going green.

The study of 440 companies in Europe found the nearly half (48 per cent) of respondents will out grow their existing data centres within the next 12 months, while 84 per cent of organisations questioned saw corporate responsibility mandatees drive the need to reduce overall power consumption in their companies.

The research found that for two-thirds of companies the cost of energy was the key factor in the bid to become greener. When asked what percentage of cost savings would be enough of an incentive to go green 12 per cent cited less than five per cent, 24 per cent stated between 5-10 per cent and 33 per cent stated between 10-20 per cent.

Nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) said that buying less power hungry IT was essential to adhering to a green data centre policy.

Bob Miller, chief executive of Onstor said that green initiatives were flowering within the IT industry but said the problem was with the end users.

"Pressure groups such as the Green Grid now taking centre stage in an industry renown for its power consumption," he said. "While the vendors appear to be taking this issue seriously the overall end user community is some way behind."

Miller added that it would appear from these findings that it will be "market and technology drivers that affect change."

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