Techies - clueless on climate change?

Nine out of ten UK IT departments do not know what their carbon footprint is and 56 per cent do not even see their energy bills, research reveals.

And only 15 per cent of CIOs said they are planning to calculate their carbon footprint, with a further 38 per cent wanting to do so but not knowing how to calculate this figure, according to a survey by environmental charity Global Action Plan.

Green IT from A to Z

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A is for Abroad
B is for Blades
C is for Carbon footprint
D is for Data centres
E is for Energy sources
F is for Freecycle
G is for Government
H is for Homeworking
I is for Ice caps
J is for Jobs (Steve)
K is for Kilowatts
L is for Landfill
M is for Mercury
N is for Nanogeneration
O is for Offsetting
P is for Paperless office
Q is for Queen
R is for Recycling
S is for SmartPlanet.com
T is for Travel
U is for Upgrade
V is for Virtualisation
W is for WEEE
X is for Xmas
Y is for You
Z is for Zero emissions

More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of IT departments do not pay for the energy consumed by their department - with 56 per cent of the total surveyed not even seeing an energy bill. Another 12 per cent are aware of how much they spend but don't foot the bill, the research reveals.

Environmental performance of equipment is also not a top concern for CIOs with only eight per cent of those surveyed purchasing products purely on their green credentials and more than a third do not even consider the green gains when purchasing new products at all.

But more than half do consider such eco-benefits when buying - but only as a secondary and less important factor, according to the An Inefficient Truth report.

The report also found IT departments are left out in the cold when it comes to planning for a greener corporate landscape with 49 per cent of tech teams only partially involved in their organisation's social responsibility and sustainability strategy and a quarter of departments not involved at all.

And nearly half of respondents have not been invited by other departments to join an organisation-wide energy efficiency project, according to the survey of 120 CIOs and IT chiefs in UK companies.

Only six per cent of the organisations surveyed have financial or personal incentives schemes for their ICT department to adopt environmentally friendly initiatives, although more than a fifth would like to see such a scheme.

Many pointed to time and cost pressures are the biggest barriers to adopting sustainable IT policies and said recognised standards and tax allowances would provide the most valuable support towards reducing the IT industry's contribution to the UK's carbon emissions.

The global IT industry accounts for two per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions - the same amount the world's aviation industry churns out - according to analyst house Gartner.