FDs to whip green IT into shape

Finance directors responsible for their company’s IT strategy need to help IT
directors understand how they can help reduce the company’s carbon footprint.
While intentions to do so are high, a new study says companies still lack
cohesive green policies and understanding of the challenges.

Data centre operator iomart polled 3,000 IT managers on the issue and found
that 66% of respondents believe their department could save the company money
through environmental policies. But it also found that a further 95% had never
seen a utility bill for their business and do not know how much energy they
used. Almost all (90%) of those questioned think climate change is “very
important” to their company’s operations, but 62% admit their organisation
doesn’t have a green policy.

Green technology
The results pose the question of how finance directors and IT managers can work
together to find cost savings for their business through ‘green technology’.

“The IT department doesn’t know how much power it is consuming,” iomart’s
commercial director Phil Worms says. “How can the cost be brought down if there
is no benchmark?”
Iomart
suggests ways FDs can make their IT departments pull their weight
in the fight against environmental costs:

• Get a powered meter reading on just the IT department;
• Give budgetary control for the department to the head of IT; and
• Incentivise your technology manager with genuine targets once you have the
  utility figures.

Worms adds that to start reducing the corporate carbon footprint, it is
crucial all IT directors know how much power their department uses, how many
pieces of equipment the company has and whether they are all necessary for the
business.