IDC will report on green IT in Copenhagen

IDC has announced that it has quantified the reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that result from using key information and communication technologies (ICT) to their full potential. The complete results of IDC's study, including an ICT Sustainability Index that ranks the ability of the G20 nations to use ICT to reduce their CO₂ emissions, will be released at a press conference in Copenhagen on 10 December.

According to IDC's calculations, 5.8 billion tons (GT) of CO₂ emissions could be eliminated by 2020 through the focused use of 17 core technologies in four major economic sectors: energy generation and distribution, transport, buildings, and industry. The estimate represents the potential reduction in greenhouse gases for just the G20 nations. Further reductions in global CO₂ emissions could be realised if more countries used ICT-based solutions to their full potential.

"ICT will be an important source of practical solutions for reducing CO₂ emissions in the G20 and many other countries," said Roberta Bigliani, Research Director at IDC Energy Insights. "Any goals to reduce energy consumption, for example, will be accelerated by using network-based solutions as a foundation. Similarly, ICT can enable more effective monitoring and management of energy use in many key sectors of a nation's economy. Although ICT is not a panacea, its full potential has not yet been put to use."

In developing the CO₂ reduction model, IDC's criterion for selecting ICT solutions were simple and clear. "The core technologies had to pass three tests: they had to be mature enough to provide real benefits within three years, support significant processing on a network and be discrete independent technologies," said Philip Carter, Associate Research Director for Green IT & Sustainability Research.

The study also acknowledges that core ICT - the data centre and communications infrastructure that underpins the emissions-reducing technologies - needs to scale in order to achieve the energy savings and associated emissions reductions. Chris Ingle, Associate Vice President of Consulting at IDC, said, " As technologies have become more powerful and more widely used to support carbon emissions reduction, the emissions from powering those technologies, and the cost of powering them, have grown. Any plan for reducing carbon emissions should include an evaluation of the emissions from core ICT infrastructure. At the same time, ICT itself needs to optimise at all levels. In addition to the rack and data centre, planners need to consider the use of energy-efficient technologies in their infrastructure as a whole, including client and print.

"We now have the ability to share with the G20 a clear road map to improve energy management through the focused use of ICT," added Vernon Turner, Senior Vice President of IDC's Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research. "Our expectation is that the ICT Sustainability Index will draw attention to how this can be achieved on a national level."