India emerges a leader in green IT potential

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: India is a world leader in green IT potential, according to a recently released global enterprise survey. Indian respondents scored over respondents from 10 other countries in expecting to pay 5% or more for green technology if its benefits for the environment and return on investment (ROI) are proven. The rest of the countries lag because they scored either on expectation to pay at least 5% or more or preferring green technology with proven ROI—and not both.

Green technology, the survey explained to respondents, is technology with efficient power consumption, recyclable/reusable packaging, recycling offers for older equipment, use of non-toxic materials, or making investments in future green concepts such as alternative materials.

The survey was conducted by GreenFactor, which researches and highlights green marketing opportunities. It’s a joint initiative between marketing intelligence company Strategic Oxygen, GCI Group and Cohn & Wolfe, which are from the WPP family of communication companies.

“Initially, it seems counter-intuitive that India would be number one,” explained Paul Walker, president, GCI Group, in the green enterprise report, “but this is a country experiencing a high-rate of IT investment and datacentre growth—coupled with brown-outs. It makes sense that IT decision makers there would be more sensitive to environmental challenges and increasingly supportive of growing their green IT solutions.”

The respondents included more than 3,500 enterprise IT decision makers including CXOs, CIOs, IT managers and line of business managers. They were paid for their time so that they would take the questions seriously before filling in their answers. While nearly half of all respondents in India, Japan, the US and France expect to pay 1-9% more for green technology products and services, more than 10% of respondents in India, the US and Japan expect to pay 10-20% more for green technology, stated the survey.

While about two-thirds of Mexicans (63%) and more than half of Italians (58%) and Brazilians (57%) expect to pay the same or less for green IT, nearly two-thirds of Japanese (71%), Americans (66%) and Indians (66%) expect to pay some premium. Other surveyed countries comprised Australia, Canada and Germany.

Indian, Mexican and Brazilian respondents’ potential preference is much higher than the global average, pointed out the survey.

They would probably or definitely prefer a brand’s green products more, if benefits are proven. Indians and Mexicans also put a time frame to their preferences and said they would definitely consider buying green laptops and desktops in the next twelve months.

Japanese respondents said they would definitely consider green laptops and desktops 11-12% of the time, as per the survey.

The survey also shows that green laptops and desktops will be more in demand globally than elaborate green backend technology in the next year.

Globally, some of the biggest barriers to adopting green IT include prices, internal disagreement and politics, doubts about return on investment, lack of promotion of green products, unavailability of green products, and lack of impact on the environment.