Sustainability in IT operations and data centers continues to be a pending issue for many companies, although there are those who believe that their programs in this regard are more advanced than they really are. This is one of the conclusions of three independent studies commissioned by Schneider Electric to more than 3,000 participants worldwide. Among them, providers of colocation and cloud services, of IT solutions and professionals from this sector of companies from different segments.
Pankaj Sharma, EVP of Secure Power Divisions at Schneider Electric says, “IT professionals understand and have taken steps to address sustainability. But what we are missing, with a few exceptions, are comprehensive and supported sustainability action plans and measurable targets to create the change needed to tackle the climate crisis.”
Challenge: how to promote sustainability
The study of 451 Research Special Report -belonging to S&P Market Intelligence- entitled “Sustainability at the Edge – The Gap between Enterprise Plans and Sustainability Programs for Core and Distributed IT”, has analyzed more than 150 medium and large companies from more than 20 sectors vertical. Where most have placed at the core of sustainability, business value as its biggest driver.
In this study, it is evident how companies start using energy and then expand to other sustainability metrics and tools. The greatest challenges of these being the optimization of the use of energy, obtaining consistent data and metrics and the lack of qualified personnel.
For its part, the Forrester Consulting document “The thought leadership paper from Forrester Consulting: Reimagine Colocation Strategy With Sustainability Front of Mind”, has focused on sustainability in hosting service providers for dissect the drivers of sustainability in the hosting service provider industry. Also indicating what are the challenges for placement players and where they are investing more in the set of technologies.
The result is clear: the majority of companies do not have a major global strategy for sustainability programs, with only 33% stating that their company has created a strategic sustainability plan. The document also indicates the biggest future challenge for these organizations: finding the right partner to help companies succeed. It is also observed that companies that have hired an external sustainability consultant as part of their sustainability initiatives are 33% more likely to achieve a high degree of maturity.
While Canalys, under the title of “How can partners develop sustainability strategies”, has wanted to analyze the preparation of the global ecosystem of the IT channel in the sustainability process with a research that defines preparation of IT channels and its role in the broader ecosystem.
Among their conclusions, 60% of those surveyed have resources dedicated to social and environmental management, 40% expect to obtain income from sustainability solutions and, a large part of the IT channel partners, they are investing in sustainability strategies although they find it difficult to translate it into real actions.
