Wall Street Journal Online

There is often a sizeable gap between what a company claims to believe in and support, and the way they manifest those beliefs. In the world of IT, says Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog writer Ben Worthen, “Information-technology pros are finally starting to pay attention to their field’s impact on the environment. They’re just not doing much about it.”

Worthen’s reading of a new report on Green IT issued by Forrester Research is cynical, but not overly pessimistic. There is certainly no shortage of “lip service” being paid to environmental issues in IT circles these days, “IT pros at more than 700 companies filled out an online survey about their green efforts. A year ago, only 124 companies participated in a similar survey. And 41% of the IT pros surveyed said that environmental concerns are very important to their business plans. But people always say the environment is important – 37% said so last year.”

The real issue at hand, says Worthen, is how much action is taking place toward implementing these “green efforts”. Beyond the increased number of participants, there appears to be a marginal increase in the implementation of green practices amongst the IT companies surveyed. Twenty percent of businesses now have plans for implementing green IT practices, compared with 15% in October 2007. And 50% include environmental criteria when they make tech purchases, up from 38% in October.

The main motivator for more sustainable business practices is not a “sense of civic” duty, the Forrester Report states, but saving money through energy bills and waste reduction.

Our Point Of View*

This is from a 2007 Forrester Report, titled The Growing Interest in Green IT : “Technology marketers today will find increasingly receptive audiences for green evangelism. Slowly, that receptivity will translate into action on the part of enterprise IT organizations.”

In a previous post on greenwashing, POV discussed how bloggers and environmental watchdog groups are very quick to point out when a company’s sustainability practices don’t align with their marketing materials. Many companies fail to live up to the claims they make publicly by actually enacting policies that would reduce waste and energy consumption, or by creating innovative products that have the potential to do so.

This discrepancy between the lip-service paid to green practices and the truth-behind-the-marketing-campaign is to be expected, but must be identified, publicized, and discouraged. Expressing the intent before taking action is one thing, but exaggerating your actual efforts in this area, or lying, as an emotional appeal to public concern is very unfortunate.

Worthen’s cynicism regarding the slight increase in environmental interest amongst IT professionals is well founded, but who’s to say that waste and energy reduction for the sake of savings isn’t “green” enough? In truth, economic incentive is (and always will be) one of the most powerful motivators for companies and individuals to ‘change their ways’.

Amongst high-tech companies, these changes are going to be gradual, not overnight. Developing sustainability best practices with built-in economic incentives is the best way to encourage companies large and small to reduce their environmental footprint. There’s no problem with moving slowly, provided the end result is measurable improvement.

In your opinion, should companies and corporations pursue green practices for the sake of civic duty, or to save money? What if a new practice that significantly reduces office waste adds a bit to your overhead? How far are you, and your company, willing to go to “be green”?

*The views expressed here are the individual views of their authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of Xerox Corporation.