Taking place on June 1-7 2010, International Green IT Awareness Week is being organised by non-profit organisation ComputersOff.org to promote environmentally sustainable IT. Through a programme of activities, training and presentations, organisations will be encouraged to adopt Green IT policies and collaborate to advance best practices.

To coincide with the event, IT Governance will be publishing the second edition of Gary Hird’s book Green IT in Practice. Praised by ‘Information Age’ magazine as a “valuable, clear primer” and “refreshingly free of consulting gobbledispeak”, Green IT in Practice advises on Green IT implementation based upon Hird’s experiences at major UK retailers the John Lewis Partnership and Waitrose. The book’s second edition provides an update on progress at both organisations and reflects the latest advances in best practice.

Hird’s book is just the latest addition to IT Governance’s specialist online Green IT store, which brings together all the best books for learning about Green IT and the tools needed to apply it in practice.

The many other books available from IT Governance include independently-published works, such as the Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy, and IT Governance’s own range of expert books and pocket guides, including Greening the Data Centre.

For organisations pursuing compliance with ISO14001, the environmental management system, IT Governance offers a range of specialist books and resources, including a labour-saving ISO14001 Documentation Toolkit.

In line with good Green IT practice, IT Governance offers many of its works in downloadable e-book format. During International Green IT Awareness Week, the company will offer an added incentive to digital readers by taking 10% off the purchase price of its entire e-book range.

Alan Calder, Chief Executive of IT Governance, says: “As companies like the John Lewis Partnership are showing, Green IT isn’t just good for the planet, it is good for business too. We applaud the organisers of International Green IT Awareness Week and are delighted to offer so many of the resources needed to convert good intentions into valuable deeds.”

IT Governance’s full range of Green IT products can be found at: http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/catalog/343. Visitors wishing to claim the 10% e-book discount should enter the voucher code: ITGPDOWNLOAD.

Getting there is the challenge. However, in response, leading compliance expert IT Governance has launched a new series of Green IT pocket guides that set out practical, easy to take steps, in the reach of every organisation, that can be a real help in implementing such a strategy.

The Green IT pocket guide series consists of three complementary titles:

The Green Agenda: A Business Guide – A guide to Green IT specifically written for a business audience, which introduces key climate change concepts and the standpoints of various groupings. It provides an overview of a Green IT strategy and a bottom line-orientated action plan.

The Green Office: A Business Guide – Developed to help cost-conscious, environmentally-minded organisations identify simple, practical ways of reducing both their cost base and their carbon footprint.

Compliance for Green IT: Pocket Guide – Covers regulations directly relevant to IT, such as carbon trading. These regulations are used – in either voluntary or mandatory programmes – to reduce CO² emissions and offset the impact of environmental damage caused elsewhere. IT is a significant consumer of power, and these trading schemes are becoming increasingly important and relevant for organisations. This guide provides an introduction to, and overview of, these programmes.

“Green IT is not only about responding to the consumer environmental concerns,” says Alan Calder, a leading author on information security and IT governance who wrote all three guides. “It is also about promoting operating efficiencies – so, even for organisations that do not have much interest in the Green Agenda, the potential cost savings from pursuing a green action plan are – particularly in recessionary times – worth having. And staying out of trouble by complying with Green IT regulations has to make sense.

“These guides offer businesses of any size the means to formulate their own green action plans, to save the planet or simply to save money.”

The Green Agenda: A Business Guide, The Green Office: A Business Guide and Compliance for Green IT: Pocket Guide are each priced £19.95/$28.99/€21.74 (ISBN 9781905356980 / 9781849280044 / 9781849280006 respectively) and can be ordered at (The Green Agenda) http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/2202, (The Green Office) http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/2200 and (Compliance for Green IT) http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/2199.

Alternatively, the three books are available as a set at a discounted price of £49.95/ $72.57/€54.44 and can be ordered at http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/2265.

The set is also available in downloadable format at http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/2267 for £49.95/$72.57/€54.44.

This is the fourth consecutive year that ACTE and KDS have gauged business opinion on issues around CSR and business travel.  The latest survey was conducted between December 2008 and January 2009 and captured the opinions of 329 travel managers and business travellers from around the world, the largest-ever response to an ACTE/KDS survey and a 52% increase from last year’s respondents.

Confounding the sceptics, the study found that companies are not being blown off course by the global recession in seeking to promote CSR:

• 61% of organisations now have a CSR charter (versus 59% in 2008)
• 27% of organisations prefer to do business with suppliers and partners with a CSR charter
• 28% of corporate travel departments are required to report to management on carbon emissions performance
• The most common CSR activities are reducing energy waste within company buildings (76% of companies), contributing to the local community (55%), cutting carbon emissions in production plans (34%) and using carbon offset arrangements (25%).

However, this commitment to CSR does not automatically translate into greener travel choices, as these often entail higher financial costs.  The survey finds that companies see cost-cutting as the top business travel concern (rated a high priority by 79% of companies), while environmentally sustainable travel is a high priority for only 17%.  Overall, environmental sustainability is rated only a mid-level priority for business travel, ranked at this level by 48% of organisations.

Greater concern about our impact on the environment appears to be more of a European phenomenon.  Only 35% of US respondents said they would consider their carbon emissions when planning business travel, compared to 42% of Europeans.

Meanwhile, the United States has already seen a greater focus on cost-cutting in the travel budget, suggesting that the situation in Europe may well worsen during 2009.  Overall, 70% of respondents said their company has sought reductions in the travel budget to save money, but for US organisations the figure was 80%.  Similarly, while 54% of respondents said they had been asked to cut their number of business trips because of the economic crisis, for US respondents the figure was 64%.

Susan Gurley, executive director and chief staff officer of ACTE, said, “The survey shows that, contrary to some predictions, Corporate Social Responsibility has not fallen from favour in these challenging times.  Instead, the figures show that it is steadily gaining ground and becoming part of the DNA for organisations around the world.  However, it also puts to rest the myth that good CSR practices automatically include greener travel choices. Under present economic conditions, green travel choices may frequently conflict with the greater urge to cut costs.”

Yves Weisselberger, CEO of KDS, commented, “At this stage, green travel choices remain scarce and are usually more expensive.  For example, European companies can send their staff by high speed rail, which is low in emissions but often more expensive than a low-cost flight.  However, in the current economy, paying a premium is hard to justify, so green business travel will lose out.  Longer term, though, the picture is brighter – companies clearly want to do the right thing through CSR, so once the financial premium is erased, or the economy permits, we should expect to see green business travel become far more popular.”

ENDS

The press conference details are as follows:

Date: Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Time:  12.15pm – 1.00pm

Place:  Conference Room 3, First Floor, Earls Court  2

Speakers: Caroline Allen, Regional Director, Northern & East Central Europe and Russia, ACTE, and Stanislas Berteloot, Marketing Director, KDS

Caroline Allen of ACTE commented, “Our fourth annual ACTE/KDS survey has had the strongest response yet from travel managers and business travellers around the world.  Contrary to what some had predicted, the commitment of business to Corporate Social Responsibility is no flash in the pan – we have clear indicators that companies seriously wish to bring about lasting change in how they act.  However, what is equally clear is that this doesn’t automatically translate into greener travel choices.”

Stanislas Berteloot of KDS said, “Although businesses have talked a lot about green travel in the past few years, in the present crisis the environment is taking a back seat to a focus on cost cutting.  The data from the US also indicates that Europe is further behind on travel cost reductions, suggesting that the situation here will only worsen in 2009.”

ENDS