Greentech Dell Study Green IT Sustainability in companies
German companies are investing in IT to become more sustainable – at least that’s what a new study by the American tech giant Dell says, which gives us hope.
Sustainability has now become a key issue for most German companies. On the one hand they want to save costs, on the other hand they want to comply with legal requirements and meet the wishes of customers and employees, as a current IDC study commissioned by Dell Technologies shows.
Greentech Study Companies invest in Green IT, want more sustainability
As a result, seven out of ten companies have increased their spending on IT to support sustainability initiatives. Particularly popular: the cloud and technologies for remote work.
Sustainability is becoming more and more of a must-have for companies in Germany in order to overcome challenges such as the energy transition, scarcity of raw materials, cost increases and a shortage of skilled workers.
Only 30% have a holistic sustainability strategy
To date, only 30 percent have a holistic sustainability strategy that pursues strictly defined goals, defines long-term measures and includes all areas of the company. However, another 56 percent have already set up a concrete sustainability program or individual sustainability initiatives.
This is the result of the current IDC study “IT & Sustainability in Germany 2023” commissioned by Dell Technologies, for which 210 companies in Germany with more than 100 employees were surveyed.
GreenIT is playing an increasingly important role Photo: Christina Wocintechchat via Unsplash
Efficiency improvements (20%), compliance (19%) and innovation (19%).
The main driver of sustainability efforts is the desire to reduce costs or keep them stable (30%). In addition, companies strive for efficiency improvements (20%), compliance (19%) and innovation (19%). 17% want to improve the loyalty and motivation of their employees through more sustainability and 17% also want to meet customer demand for environmentally friendly products.
Greentech BiZ: New IT helps to become more sustainable
However, in achieving these goals, companies face some challenges such as a lack of knowledge or staff (26%) and outdated IT infrastructures (24%). However, most companies have understood that modern IT helps them to become more sustainable. As a result, 71% have increased their spending on technology to support sustainability initiatives. 30% even implement more IT projects to increase their sustainability than planned.
Cloud is the top technology for more sustainability
In an effort to become more sustainable through modern technologies, 52% of companies rely on private or hybrid cloud environments and 45% on public cloud services. The basic idea is that cloud-based infrastructures can be better utilized than dedicated IT systems. In addition, cloud providers can usually operate their large data centers much more efficiently than companies can run their smaller data centers or their own server rooms.
However, a cloud is not automatically sustainable – it also depends on which sources the electricity comes from, how efficient the IT systems are and how the cooling concept is designed.
Sustainable PC: The Dell concept laptop “Luna”
43% rely on remote work
43% of companies are also using remote work technologies to reduce their environmental footprint. This enables them to reduce their CO2 emissions because employees have to commute less or travel on business less. Technologies for smart buildings (35%), smart factories (33%) and AI and machine learning (30%) have been somewhat less popular so far. However, it is only a matter of time before this changes, because intelligent data analyzes help to identify potential for savings and efficiency improvements in building management, production and IT.
Key figures enable targeted measures
In order to make IT itself more sustainable, companies are replacing outdated hardware more quickly and developing more economical software (green coding). However, so far only 37% have recorded the energy consumption of their internal and 31% that of their external IT. Most frequently, the recording is done on a monthly basis (30%) and for the entire IT (38%). Only a small proportion of companies can quantify the consumption of individual systems (20%), racks (14%), applications (12%) and end devices (2%). Measurements that are as granular as possible are crucial in order to be able to precisely allocate and optimize energy consumption.
In addition, companies tend to focus on consumption rather than efficiency. However, they have recognized this deficit and want to monitor the energy efficiency and the specific CO2 emissions of their internal and external IT more closely in the future. In addition to the consumption of energy, water or material, customer and employee satisfaction are also among the sustainability indicators that most companies already collect. In addition, most of them see themselves in a good position to be able to create the ESG reports (environmental, social, governance) required by the EU in the coming years – 87% of the companies already compile the necessary key figures, albeit in some cases still with Excel ( 33%).
Sustainability is gaining in importance
“Sustainability is now a high priority for most companies because environmentally conscious action enables significant savings and is increasingly demanded by customers and employees,” reports Emanuel Lippmann, EMEA Program Manager Sustainability at Dell Technologies. “One of the keys to more sustainability is IT – on the one hand, it helps to use energy, water and raw materials more efficiently and reduce waste, on the other hand, it itself consumes valuable resources.
IT an integral part of the sustainability strategy
IT must therefore be an integral part of every sustainability strategy, especially since the IT landscapes of companies are growing rapidly due to advancing digitization. Devices and systems that are produced in an environmentally friendly way are needed that are not only efficient, but whose components and materials can be repaired, reused, processed and recycled.”
Sustainability has become a key issue for German companies, as an IDC study commissioned by Dell Technologies shows. (Source: Dell Technologies)
A PDF of the graphic can be accessed here.