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Optimism and enthusiasm for the climate change agenda may have waned somewhat, but energy-efficient IT may also prove to be economically sustainable IT

In 2007, concern for the environment hit an all-time high among businesses, government organisations and the general public. Since that year, green fervour has palpably waned.

In the private sector, the financial crisis and ensuing recession stole the limelight as far as executive priorities were concerned. In the public sphere, meanwhile, enthusiasm for change seemed to give way to either scepticism towards the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change or pessimism about society’s ability – or desire – to do anything about it.

That change in public opinion might have seemed fast, but it was not quite fast enough to prevent the mechanism of legislation from kicking in. From April 2010, UK organisations that consume more than 6,000 MWh of power annually will be obliged to participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions. According to the government’s estimates, the CRC applies to around 5,000 private and public sector organisations in the UK.

For those organisations to which the CRC applies, and any organisation under pressure to reduce emissions, the data centre has become a focus of concern. According to the UK’s technology industry body, Intellect, the average data centre consumes the same amount of energy as 25,000 households.

However, an Information Age research report published in September 2009 found that only 40% of businesses measure the power consumption of their own data centres. Even fewer (27%) knew the power usage efficiency (PUE) of their data centre facilities. A certain proportion of respondents in that study both measured their PUE and were actively engaged in reducing it, but clearly there remains a significant proportion of UK businesses that are at best bemused by the environmental impact of their data centre operations, and at worst uncaring. The Effective IT survey, meanwhile, found that 31.8% of businesses have adopted ‘power management strategies’ – 65.8% of which rated them as effective – with 17.3% planning to do so in the coming year.

The current ambivalence towards the ‘green movement’ – seen most recently in the lack-lustre response to December 2009’s UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen – is unlikely to convert many more organisations to the cause. However, economic circumstances may well do.

Even the most optimistic of forecasters are predicting only modest business growth in 2010. This means that the cost-cutting imperative is far from over. However, having undertaken such emergency measures as reducing headcount and discontinuing certain products and services, businesses must now find ways to become more efficient and, critically, more sustainable in their operations.

Enhancing energy efficiency is an established and proven method of improving the efficiency of operations, and the average data centre is ripe for efficiency improvements. Rather than overshadowing the green IT agenda, then, the economic downturn may prove to be the mechanism that translates popular enthusiasm into lasting institutional change.

At the same time, technologies such as smart metering and efficient logistics planning provide IT departments with an opportunity to deliver efficiency gains beyond the IT infrastructure. For businesses looking to make their operations more economically sustainable, these technologies – first mooted in the green boom of the middle of the last decade – may well provide the answer.