Service Providers of the Information Society - Companies deploy Green IT primarily in order to reduce operating costs

The term Green IT includes apart from the energy efficient and environmentally friendly production and disposal of information and communication technology (ICT) also the reduction of emissions via the use of ICT. Meanwhile, more than half of the companies of the economic sector service providers of the information society use telephone conferences as a substitute for business trips. For this purpose, a whole series of companies falls back on net-meetings and video conferences. The greatest advantage of Green IT for the companies is the reduction of operating costs, followed by gains in efficiency and productivity as well as the positive effects with regard to the image of the company. This is the result of a business survey among service providers of the information society, conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research in cooperation with the credit reference agency Creditreform, Neuss, in December 2009 (details regarding the survey are provided below).

The economic sector service providers of the information society includes ICT service providers (companies in the sectors software and IT services, ICT-specialized trade and telecommunication services) and the knowledge intensive service providers (companies in the sectors tax consultancy and accounting, management consultancy, architecture, technical consultancy and planning, research and development as well as advertising companies). "While ICT-service providers, as well as the knowledge intensive service providers, name the reduction of operating costs as the greatest advantage of Green IT, their opinions regarding a further ranking are divided", says Miruna Sarbu, researcher at ZEW. "Among the ICT-service providers, a positive image of the company is in second position, while the knowledge intensive service providers see productivity effects and gains in efficiency in this position in the ranking."

When it comes to using information and communication technologies for conferences and meeting instead of business trips, the partial sectors of the service providers of the information society give the main points differently as well. Accordingly by far the most companies use telephone conferences. Except for the ICT-specialized trade, all sectors of the service providers of the information society claim to substitute business trips by net-meetings the second most. In all partial sectors, videoconferences are fallen least upon, with the exception of the ICT-specialized trade. The telecommunication services deploy all three types of communication the most, architects the least.

The economic survey conducted by ZEW/Creditreform

About 900 businesses each participate in the quarterly survey. The economic sector service providers of the information society consists of information and communication technology-(ICT) service providers (businesses of the branches software and IT-services, ICT specialized trade and telecommunication services) and knowledge intensive service providers (businesses of the branches tax consultancy and accounting, business consultancy, architectural offices, technical consultancy and planning, research and development and advertising).

Overview of the ZEW/Creditreform economy survey (German language only)

Comment on the projection

To ensure the representativity of the analyses, ZEW projects the answers of the participants of the survey on the number of all companies with regard to the economic branch considered.

For further information please contact

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