Green IT - A Lot of Unused Potential for Increasing the Energy Efficiency in Companies

"Green IT" is often discussed in the current climate debate. This leads to the impression that companies are influenced by aspects like energy efficiency and environmental protection when using information technologies (IT). The findings of a survey conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim and Creditreform indicate that this is only sometimes the case. The survey analyses around 900 companies with a particularly high usage of IT.

Due to their own range of services, ICT service providers, i.e. software businesses, IT services, ICT-specialised trade and telecommunication services, are a lot better informed about Green IT than knowledge-intensive service providers, i.e. companies in the sectors tax consulting and accounting, management consultancy, architecture, technical consultancy and planning, research and development as well as advertising. About 54 percent of ICT service providers and only about 32 percent of knowledge-intensive service providers are familiar with Green IT.

"Being familiar with the concept of Green IT does not mean that companies already put it into practice", says Irene Bertschek, head of ZEW research group Information and Communication Technologies. For example, the energy needs for uninterrupted power supply and the cooling of company server are huge. To increase their energy efficiency, companies should ensure that they use their servers to the full. The ZEW survey also indicates another fact. One third of ICT service providers and about 18 percent of knowledge-intensive service providers use less than half of their server capacity. Only one third of all companies use 70 to 100 percent for their server capacity. "There is still potential to increase the energy efficiency in companies", says Bertschek.

For further information please contact

Miruna Sarbu, Phone: +49 (0)621/1235-334, E-mail: sarbu@zew.de

Prof. Dr. Irene Bertschek, Phone: +49 (0)621/1235-178, E-mail: bertschek@zew.de