IT and the environment: Do IT leaders really care about sustainability?

As the world becomes increasingly digitalised, the IT industry’s carbon footprint is growing rapidly. By 2025, the number of connected devices – which includes anything connected to the internet via WiFi, Bluetooth or a physical connection including smartphones, video surveillance and household appliances - is expected to reach 55.7 billion. The data generated from these devices is estimated to reach 79.4ZB by 2025. And the energy needed to use and charge these devices will result in an environment impact that will be equivalent to 463 million cars. By 2040, IT infrastructure and operations is expected to account for 14% of all global carbon emissions¹.

IT is now fundamental to the way we live, but this can’t come at the expense of the planet. If we want to create a sustainable future, then the industry must act to reduce its environmental impact. 

Technology is fast moving, but such innovation also creates vast amounts of e-waste as many devices are rapidly rendered obsolete. Research from Capgemini found that 89% of businesses recycle less than 10% of their IT hardware².  Currently, more than 160,000 laptops are disposed off every day in Europe. And it’s a wasted opportunity; 70% could be re-used³.

Against this backdrop, it is clear that sustainability is a major challenge facing the IT industry as we work to transition towards a Net Zero economy. And regulations are starting to reflect this. The EU’s new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which SMEs will have to comply with from 2026, will mean that reporting on sustainability progress will become a requirement for IT leaders⁴.

Considering sustainable changes now will help businesses stay on the front-foot ahead of these regulations coming into place. Despite this, Capgemini’s research shows only 18% of businesses have a comprehensive sustainability strategy, with well-defined goals and a clear timeline in place². So, where exactly does sustainability rank among IT leaders’ priorities?

Sustainability is important for IT leaders, but not a priority

We wanted to find out more about this in small and medium-sized businesses across Europe, so we teamed up with market research company Savanta to survey more than 1,200 IT managers in businesses with 1 to 249 employees across the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

Four in five (82%) said that sustainability was important for their businesses, with 79% saying it was important specifically to their IT departments. On the surface, this is encouraging and suggests they are aware of their responsibility to act sustainably.

But we also found that sustainability was not a priority, and only a tertiary concern for businesses when picking their IT provider. For businesses, factors such as reliability, price, quality and security were all much more important, which can put IT providers off embedding best sustainable practices.

Why is sustainability not a priority?

Of the 18% of IT managers who felt sustainability was not important to their business, the main reason given was that other tasks took priority, followed by a perception that they had no need to be concerned about the environmental impact of their departments.

Even within the overwhelming majority who viewed it as important, sustainability was seen as a challenge, with rising energy costs, inflation and the procurement of sustainable IT equipment all seen as barriers to environmental improvements.

And IT managers were more inclined to prioritise issues including keeping tabs on emerging technologies, managing costs and retaining staff. IT leaders may also feel that implementing sustainable practices is not their responsibility. This is because IT largely operates as a support function within a business, meaning that is limited in what it can do by requests made to it from other departments in the business.

At the same time, IT is taking on a bigger role as businesses become increasingly digitalised. This bigger role comes with more time constraints, they prioritise their main function – to provide digital security – which can cause sustainability to fall down the pecking order.

All of this means that when asked what the biggest IT challenges they faced were, only 22% of those surveyed said sustainability. With only 29% saying they have no need to implement sustainable practices, the rest who do are aware that it is an issue, but it is certainly not an immediate priority.

Save money – and the planet

So, what can be done to encourage IT decision makers to push sustainability higher up the agenda?

One strategy is to highlight the very real cost savings that sustainable practices can achieve for businesses. This can also help to persuade other departments to implement these practices, overcoming a hurdle for IT departments who feel they don’t have the power to introduce these changes.

Saving money is the most common driver for sustainable initiatives, with 47% of IT leaders crediting it as the main reason they act sustainably, rather than any deep-seated desire to protect the planet.

IT leaders may not view sustainability as an immediate priority, instead choosing to focus their efforts into areas such as costs and reliability. Although the majority are aware of it, it is not necessarily high on their agendas. But it should be, as it can also impact the areas they often prioritise over it, such as cost reduction.

The next blog in this series takes a more in-depth look at the connections that exist between cost reduction and sustainable practices. You can also discover how we help our partners implement sustainable solutions into their businesses.

^Sources:

^{[1] https://www.cio.com/article/646192/sustainable-it-a-crisis-needing-leadership-and-change.html}

^{[2] https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/sustainable-it/}

^{[3] https://circularcomputing.com/what-is-sustainable-it/}

<sup>[4] https://www.ibm.com/topics/csrd

2023 Brother SMB IT Decision-Maker Study (Savanta)</sup>