The Butler Group has published a new report highlighting the need for IT to take more responsibility for an organisation’s sustainability agenda.

The report is called “Sustainable IT Provision – Meeting the Challenge of Corporate, Social, and Environmental Responsibility,” and explains the need for IT management to be more proactive in understanding environmental challenges, and more aware of equipment’s environmental aspects and of how resources are consumed.

The Butler Group’s research was based on its discussion with vendors and subscribers.

The report warns against IT passively accepting “green marketing hype”. Mark Blowers, the report’s co-author, said “many marketing teams latch onto the latest of trends and blow these out of proportion; everything has to have a green aspect.”

Instead, in order to meet an organisation’s sustainability objectives, the IT department should maintain a clear focus on green goals and remain flexible in order that the department can take advantage of forthcoming green opportunities, Blowers added.

“Those taking an interest in environmental aspects of life may have already come across the mantra of the Three R’s – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Butler Group has added a fourth for the IT manager—which encompasses the approaches and technologies that need some investment in resources to bring to fruition,” said the report.

“Although the green agenda should be driven by the business, there are certain ways the IT department can help by pointing out the way,” Blowers said, adding that “a lot is to do with the company culture.”

The group also indicates particular areas where IT can improve their green agenda.

Printing should be investigated and made more environmentally friendly. “Cheap printers ubiquitous in office environments, along with a combination of spiralling information volumes and the accessibility of printed output, have led to wasteful practices and needless paper use,” Blowers said in the report.

Blowers adds that procurement processes should also be considered and urges IT departments to put more pressure on suppliers to manufacture products that do not contain toxic chemicals.

But the main issue is data centre power consumption and underutilised servers and storage. “The adoption of key re-engineering efforts, such as implementing an architectural approach, deploying hardware designed to use Direct Current supply, and utilising fresh air cooling, as well as improving utilisation by investing in consolidation and virtualisation, can result in not only reduced energy consumption, but also significant efficiency benefits and lower overheads,” the report concludes.