Britain Leads In Fujitsu Green IT Index

The UK is leading the way in the adoption of green IT practices, boasting a green IT index that is higher than the US, Australia and India.

According to Fujitsu’s ‘Green IT: Global Benchmark’ report, the UK has the most rigorous carbon reduction and carbon reporting strategy of any of the countries surveyed, and awareness of green IT is higher than in the other countries. Overall, Britain scored a green IT index of 61.0 (out of 100).

The US rated second followed by Australia, which was reportedly let down by its poor metrics, and India where end user green IT is not widely implemented. In general, green IT maturity was found to be comparatively low, with the index across all industries in all countries rated at 56.4.

Integrated sustainability

“Tomorrow’s business leaders will be leaders in sustainability; they will understand the importance of an integrated sustainability strategy,” said Alison O’Flynn, global executive director of sustainability at Fujitsu Group. “IT has a fundamental role to play in enabling change and must step up to face this significant global challenge.”

“Fujitsu is calling on ICT industry forums, user groups, professional bodies and corporate social responsibility board members to use this research to energise Green IT action,” she added.

The two best performing areas in the green IT index were ‘Enterprise’ – which includes data centres, networking, communications, cloud and software architecture – and ‘End User’, including personal and departmental computing and printing. Worst on the scale was Metrics, indicating that few organisations are currently measuring the impact of green IT.

According to Fujitsu, however, there is significant opportunity for improvement in every area of green IT, and managers need to do more to educate their businesses about the benefits IT can deliver to society. The report also found that the use of IT to reduce the carbon footprint outside of the IT function rated very low, indicating the inward focus of many green IT initiatives.

Green government IT

The news of the UK’s proactivity in this area comes despite public sector cuts casting a shadow over the government’s pledge to drive a low-carbon economy and make the coalition the “greenest government ever”. When Chancellor George Osborne announced the budget back in June, it seemed the government was concentrating solely on ways to cut the deficit by reducing expenditure and increasing taxation.

However, there have since been indications that the coalition is committed to its green promises. In July, for example, the government announced a new energy policy designed to cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

Central to the government’s strategy is a new Smart Meter Prospectus, published with Ofgem, detailing plans to accelerate the rollout of smart meters to every home and small business in the country. However, Ovum recently criticised the government’s strategy, calling the plans for an accelerated rollout “hasty”.

Meanwhile the UK’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is gradually ramping up. In 2011, the country’s top 5000 electricity users will have to buy permits, at an initial price of £12 per tonne of CO2 they emit; and in 2013, companies will have to start reducing their emissions by five percent every year – or buy more permits in a public auction, where prices are expected to rise dramatically.

Failure to comply with the regulations, or submitting false statements could result in fines of up to £50,000, according to CRC consultant Andrew Jones of ITM Communications.

There has even been some suggestion that the recession itself has done more to reduce UK emissions than any other action. A report published by the government-appointed Committee on Climate in July found that UK greenhouse gas emissions fell by 1.9 percent in 2008 and 8.6 percent in 2009, largely due to the recession and other exogenous factors, like fuel price rises discouraging people to use their cars.