The research, which was carried out by leading IT provider, Digital Space, surveyed over 1,000 representatives across 10 different industries, to highlight the valuable role IT has in reducing corporate environmental impact.
The findings found that 57% of organisations had already considered the correlation between sustainable IT and scalable business growth, while 64% considered how IT providers can help their organisation become more sustainable. Public cloud, for instance, is 80% more carbon and energy efficient than running infrastructure in a data centre, while SD-WAN promotes re-use and remanufactured laptops can provide cheaper and greener options for users.
However, despite the recognised benefits of sustainable IT, there is a reluctance to take swift action. 59% of respondents stated that sustainable changes around their IT infrastructure would not be enacted for at least another year while 36% stated that a 5% increase in cost would be enough to deter them.
Tim Lancaster, Managing Director of Cloud at Digital Space, said: “While our sustainability report has shown that IT professionals want to be more sustainable and believe that IT can reduce carbon emissions, it has also demonstrated some reluctance to take sustainable action.
“Despite recognising the importance of technology in achieving company-wide sustainable targets, IT professionals have been deterred by associated costs with only 7% revealing that cost was not an important factor. Our advice here would be to look at the long-term savings and goals. When considering pay-as-you go tariffs, re-use and employee productivity, especially from cloud technologies, organisations will benefit from cost savings as well as increased sustainability.”
Other key takeaways from the report included:
8 out of 10 organisations have either reduced their carbon footprint already or have defined plans to do so. These organisations expect that IT will be part of this.
51.5% of organisations believe regulation or an industry code of conduct is pushing them to become more sustainable, with 53.6% revealing Board/Employee support of sustainability as the driving force, 45.4% customer expectations and 19.7% marketing/branding.
2/3 of respondents see sustainability increasing business growth and profit.
60% of respondents report a lack of immediacy regarding impact to their IT usage, given that over 80% reported either full remote working or a hybrid working arrangement.
