18 Nov 2008

Green IT 'the industry trend that makes sense'

Industry experts have encouraged companies to follow market trends and invest in greener IT solutions.

Ruth Harenchar, vice president of consulting services at TechnoDyne, told IDG News that some companies could be wasting money through inefficient data centre practices.

Businesses can be paying more money through energy bills to try and cool their machines than they originally paid to buy them, she added.

Companies should consider moving their data centres underground, or move quickly to invest in new technology such as virtualisation, the article suggested.

Virtualisation means that firms will benefit from having fewer pieces of hardware in operation in their data centres, thus reducing their energy costs and carbon footprint, indicated Cheemin Bo-Linn, chief executive of Peritus Partners.

Ms Bo-Linn said: "Energy-efficient solutions make good business sense. But these solutions must have a credible, measurable path to profitability, be sustainable and [be] facilitated by favorable regulations."

A study by communications consultancy Spada has suggested that companies in the FTSE 100 are not precise enough about how they define sustainability within their organisations, reports Greenbiz.com.