14 Jan 2009

Strong commercial case for green IT, expert says

Firms are making substantial returns on investments in green IT, an expert has suggested.

James Murray, editor of BusinessGreen.com, a multimedia publication which advises firms on how to improve their environmental performance, said companies which operate large server farms are capable of saving between 70 per cent and 80 per cent on their energy costs through green IT.

New technologies, such as virtualisation, are becoming popular because of their financial impact on a business' infrastructure, he suggested.

The trend was recently identified in a survey by Kyocera Mita, which found that 60 per cent of firms were predicting environmental awareness to increase as a result of the impact of the global economic crisis and high fuel costs.

Mr Murray commented that companies which face multi-million pound energy bills from large server farms are picking up on the potential cost savings brought about through green IT.

"They're getting returns on their investments over relatively short periods, so there's a strong commercial case for these types of projects and the [reduction in] CO2 emissions come in as a happy upside," he said.