IT department escapes green policy setting

IT managers are waiting on a corporate directive or more resources in order to implement practices to reduce energy consumption, a Fujitsu survey has found.

The survey of 310 CIOs and IT managers commissioned by Fujitsu Australia found 60 per cent of respondents didn't have a green IT policy in place.

Of those that did, however, 95 per cent reported cost savings and other efficiencies from having it.

But the survey seemed to dispel the idea that having a green IT policy would increase customers attracted because of it.

Only 21 per cent of respondents reported this to be the case.

One reason IT is lagging on green IT is the idea that green policies are seen as enterprise-wide initiatives that incorporate IT.

This is backed by the finding that less than 10 per cent of the CIOs surveyed said they were directly responsible for setting their company's sustainability policy.

The survey also claimed that IT managers didn't understand the specific environmental metrics of relevance to their work - despite them reporting "higher levels of understanding of green issues than the general public does", the report said.

"This low level of understanding calls into question how equipped IT managers are to make environmental-related decisions," the report said.

Most IT managers were looking at things like server consolidation, virtualisation or setting power shutdown policies, but these initiatives were designed to save money rather than contribute directly to a green IT policy setting.