According to a recent survey in the USA by CDW Green IT is very firmly on the agenda for small to medium sized businesses.

The survey polled over 1000 IT decision makers and results showed that nearly a third (31%) of the small businesses questioned were planning on implementing Green IT initiatives in the next two years.

The major factors that were holding businesses back from including Green IT in their plans were lack of expertise (22%) and complexity of maintenance (21%).

Until now Green IT has been thought of as only really applying to the big guys, the Google’s, BP’s etc of the world.  While it is true that the world does tend to look to the big companies to lead the way this doesn’t mean that they are the ones with sole responsibility.

Equally, while it is the big guys who stand to make the biggest savings through reducing energy consumption it doesn’t mean that there aren’t real savings to be made by the smaller company.  How many small business owners are really not interested in cutting their bills without having to change the way they work?

Green IT projects come in a variety of different formats but the ones generally considered most applicable to the small to medium sized business are PC power management, server virtualisation and making use of cloud computing.

There are also technologies that can be used to reduce the environmental impact of operations such as online virtual meeting places, negating the need to all travel to one place for a monthly meeting , or advanced logistics management systems optimising vehicle routes and thus reducing emissions and saving money.

At Vivid IT Solutions, Green IT is the way we do things, it’s not a product we sell and we work closely with a company to make sure that they can get the most out of their IT while minimising outlay and maximising savings.