Cost biggest barrier to green IT

Green IT is seen as important, but managers have serious cost concerns

Just over half of IT decision makers are holding back on employing green IT technologies citing concerns about cost, according to a survey by US tech services vendor CDW Corporation.

A further quarter of respondents cited complexity surrounding implementation and maintenance of green IT solutions as primary barriers.

Around one in five said that potential disruptions to current systems is the number one sticking point.

The survey, which interviewed more than 1,000 US IT decision makers between May and June 2008, found that 80 per cent of respondents across government and corporate sectors believe that implementing green IT is important.

However, the study revealed that altruistic concern for the environment was not always the major motivating solutions behind investing in green systems.

Almost half of respondents indicated that 'positive reputation' was one of the greatest benefits of adopting green computer technology.

"Even though IT decision makers clearly recognise the importance of green IT solutions such as virtualisation and server consolidation, there are always going to be growing pains involved with making a significant change to an organisation," said CDW vice president Mark Gambill.

"If going green means replacing servers that are already delivering reliable IT to an organisation, then widespread adoption may take some time."

The survey also found that just 35 per cent of government organisations had embraced green IT solutions, and that 39 per cent had no plans to do so over the next two years.

"It will be interesting to see how the priorities of government organisations regarding green IT may change over time as its value in long-term cost savings becomes more clear," said Gambill.