A new study by Gartner has found that some of the most cost-effective, sustainable IT initiatives are seeing adoption rates of less than 30% among businesses.
In addition, close to two thirds (64%) of executive leaders believe they do not receive adequate emissions performance data from their vendors, a lack of information that hampers their ability to prioritise and implement sustainable IT initiatives effectively.
Gartner surveyed 200 executive leaders from North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific for its studym which was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2023 and sought to assess actions taken by IT departments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Areas of progress
Two key areas where sustainable IT initiatives have seen substantial progress, however, are data centres and the digital workplace. In data centers, 86% of respondents reported completing sustainable initiatives, while 79% reported the same for the digital workplace. However, within these areas, certain cost-effective initiatives remain underutilised, Gartner said.
“Sustainable IT progress is underway at a solid pace,” commented Kristin Moyer, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner. “The survey found that executive leaders have completed an average of nine sustainable IT initiatives in the categories of data centers and cloud, digital workplace, data and software.
“However, sustainable IT adoption patterns show that executives may not always be implementing the most cost-effective initiatives.”
Efficiency and cost savings
According to Gartner, IT executives should examine ways to increase efficiency and achieve cost savings within their internal systems, with enhanced cooling systems, such as immersion cooling, passive cooling, and direct-to-chip cooling, is currently underutilised.
Also underutilised, according to the study, its the integration of circularity into IT practices is an underutilised approach. Only 22% of surveyed leaders are opting to purchase refurbished assets, which can improve circularity, reduce waste, and lower GHG emissions.
Additionally, many organisations continue to refresh tech devices based on a fixed lifecycle, typically three to five years, rather than using analytics to determine the optimal replacement time.
“Some executive leaders struggle to prioritize sustainable IT initiatives or know where to start,” Moyer added. “They also neglect to consider sustainable IT initiatives that are low cost and achieve moderate GHG reduction.”
