Corporates use their tech teams to cut power costs

Photo / NZ Herald

The country's largest businesses appear to have found an effective way to trim their power costs: hand the monthly power bill to the IT department.

A global survey of large businesses' attitude towards sustainability, carried out by IT company Symantec, found 87 per cent of New Zealand and Australia's largest enterprises now make the IT department manage the power budget for the entire organisation.

The reason for this is that such a large percentage of most businesses' electricity usage is consumed by IT-related activities, it makes sense to give technology chiefs the job of finding ways to cut power costs.

"Whether you're a private enterprise, a publicly listed company, or a Government organisation, they all have cost reduction targets to meet," said Craig Scroggie, Symantec's vice-president and managing director for the Pacific region. "They're all facing smaller operating budgets, fewer staff and are having to do more with less."

According to Symantec's 2009 Worldwide Green IT Report, released this week, 97 per cent of large Australasian businesses are "at least discussing a green IT strategy", while 46 per cent have already implemented green IT initiatives.

The survey polled more than 1000 businesses worldwide, all with more than 1000 staff. It included 75 organisations in Australia and New Zealand.

Businesses said their top motivation for going green when it came to IT policies was a desire to save money. The second most cited reason was to reduce power consumption.

Scroggie said handing the entire corporate power bill to the IT department was proving to be an effective way to achieve both goals.

"They're saying that a very large percentage of the energy consumption of the entire company is coming from the data centre and the distributed workforce [which involves staff using] laptops, desktops, monitors," he said. "With the vast majority of respondents now responsible for the electricity costs of their data centre, IT departments have emerged as a driving force in implementing green IT technologies - not only for energy and cost-savings benefits, but also as a result of proposed legislative requirements and a sense of environmental responsibility to their communities."

Symantec found corporates continued to strive to show off a "green" side to their branding.

"Companies are looking at their brand reputation. They're looking at their corporate social responsibility, not only from the community's point of view but also from how their employees view it," Scroggie said.

And while large businesses are being forced to slash operating budgets in the face of the global economic recession, the survey found "green IT" budgets were actually increasing. Seventy-four per cent of large Australasian businesses expected an increase in green IT budgets over the next 12 months.

Scroggie said the enthusiasm for spending on green IT was due to an expected financial payback because newer, more sustainable technology would reduce power costs to the business.

He said there was also a large uptake in corporate policies aimed at ensuring IT equipment such as desktop PCs and monitors were turned off overnight or when not in use. Simply ensuring all machines were powered off outside business hours could cut 40 per cent off the IT department's power usage.

"The survey indicates the awareness and adoption of green technologies and practices have increased over the past year. The green conscience of corporate Australia and New Zealand is growing and businesses are taking proactive steps to reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint," he said.

"This survey demonstrates the increasing importance of developing a green strategy that delivers both environmental and financial benefits. Those businesses that demonstrate sound sustainability practices will be the ones to thrive in years to come."