New research released by Morse, has found that 89% of UK businesses are oblivious to how much power their IT department uses. This is because electricity costs have traditionally been paid for by a central facilities or operations group, rather than individual departments or business areas within an organisation. The research found that only 12% of businesses charge their IT department for the power it uses. In addition, 62% of organisations said that green IT was not a top priority for them.

“The research clearly shows that green IT is not a priority for organisations at the moment. Even if it was, without knowing the energy usage of IT, they would struggle to understand how they can make changes to become more environmentally friendly,” said Tim Turquand, consultant, Morse. “However, when you consider that Gartner estimates that 2% of global CO2 emissions are caused by ICT, and that this is comparable to the emissions of the aviation industry, it suddenly becomes clear why organisations need to start thinking about the impact that their IT is having.”

The study also showed that 76% of organisations have not set targets for reducing the amount of energy that IT consumes. However, 63% of respondents said that they have an organisation-wide policy on becoming more environmentally friendly. Considering that IT is a significant contributor to the CO2 emissions of most organisations, but the majority have not set targets for reductions, it is clear that the connection between IT and harm to the environment has not been made, or is being ignored by many organisations.

“It’s no wonder that only 24% of organisations are working towards a set energy reduction target,” said Turquand. “Without a way to measure how much power the IT department is consuming, businesses trying to reduce their energy usage can’t set a definite reduction target, and without a target, there is no way to tell if the steps you are taking actually work. Setting targets, measuring against them and then billing each department for their energy consumption is crucial because it increases accountability, giving departments the incentive to become more energy efficient. Clearly, these must be the first steps of any organisation that wants to reduce its carbon footprint.”