Green IT should be more beneficial during an economic
downturn but falling oil prices will make investments in green IT
difficult to justify.
Green IT programmes cost money and a major aim during economic
slowdown is to cut capital expenditure.
Recession makes mere survival a priority for company boards, and
with oil prices falling, it is harder to justify spending money
upfront to save energy.
Energy analyst Nigel Hawkins says if oil prices remain low there
will eventually be lower-cost electricity. "When you have a high
energy price you can justify green generation, but when prices come
down certain green projects will not stack up."
According to Tony Baer, senior analyst at Ovum,
environmentally-friendly IT will be hard hit by the dual effect of
recession and oil price deflation in the shortterm.
"Perhaps no single planning IT objective was a greater casualty
of the economic turmoil of 2008 than the cause of green IT," he
says."It makes it much more difficult to justify spending money to
make a datacentre more energy efficient if energy is low cost."
He says Green IT will take a backseat to cost-cutting and
survival in 2009, but it will not go away.
Many businesses have drawn up green IT strategies. They include
the introduction of technologies such as server virtualisation to
reduce datacentre power use and videoconferencing to cut the amount
of air travel required. Both cut costs as well as CO2
emissions.
Nick Claxson, managing director of Comtec Enterprises, which
builds energy-efficient datacentres, says there has been a "pause
for breath" among businesses in regard to their green IT
strategies. "Leading up to Christmas the economic turmoil forced
many companies put their plans on hold."
But he says now they have considered it the economic situation
they realise they have to cut costs and see green IT as a way of
doing this.
Businesses that have mature green IT strategies will benefit as
the economy slows. HSBC has been implementing green IT since 2005.
The bank set targets to reduce energy, waste, water and CO2
emission in 2005. It has since set targets to reduce the amount of
energy it uses in IT by 8% and cut CO2 emissions resulting from IT
by 6% by 2011.
At today's utility prices, HSBC's reduction in energy and water
consumption has resulted in an average annual saving of more than
US$11m across the group.
"There are many benefits to operating
environmentally-sustainable IT systems, which are perhaps even more
significant in times of a recession," says Matthew Robinson,
manager for group corporate Sustainability at HSBC.
Despite banks across the world cutting costs, HSBC is
accelerating its green plans. The bank submitted plans for a £300m,
325,000 square metre datacentre which will use
environmentally-friendly IT and building methods. Less than 25% of
the site will be built on, with the rest being used to improve
ecological habitats and enhance wildlife.
The bank is considering using 100% green tariff electricity as
well as an aquifer to provide renewable cooling and exporting waste
heat to an adjacent public swimming pool.
"We believe you have to view environmentally sustainable
initiatives in terms of their long-term value and return," says
Robinson. "Having said that, a large number of these initiatives
are cost-effective and provide HSBC with a short-term return on
investment."
Green IT practices are here to stay, but now might not be the
right time for many companies to implement them. Those that have
already begun using energy-efficient IT will reap the benefits
during recession and provide the perfect argument to those CIOs
still trying to get their full plans approved.