Server virtualisation is no panacea for cutting carbon emissions – indeed there could be three times more savings secured from placing greater emphasis on using IT to change entrenched business processes. 

He claims it is three times more effective to spend IT budgets on improving business as usual activities rather than just virtualising servers.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it – but look at where you’d get the most benefit from your spend.”

Andrew Milroy, industry director of the ICT group of analyst Frost & Sullivan, who recently chaired a session at the Sustainability and Technology Forum held in Sydney, broadly agrees that “Sustainable IT is made up of two components. Firstly it consists of ways of reducing IT’s carbon emissions through activities such as data centre consolidation or even small operational changes like power management for PCs. Secondly and perhaps more importantly it comprises ways in which IT and IT suppliers can enable whole organisations to reduce carbon emissions in non IT specific activities such as by developing smart grids for utilities firms or enabling video conferencing.”

According to Riegert while there is interest in green IT generally among Australian enterprises “they are more interested in information that action.”

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