IDC readies ICT Sustainability Index ahead of UN’s COP15 Climate Change Conference
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IDC today announced that it has completed an index, the ICTSustainability IndexTM, that scores a country’s ability to useinformation and communications technologies (ICT) to effectively reduceits CO2 emissions. The complete results will be released at a pressconference in Copenhagen on December 10th.
The ICTSustainability Index ranks the individual countries that make up theG20, who also account for over seventy percent of the world’s grossdomestic product and the world’s carbon emissions.
IDCbelieves that the ICT Sustainability Index will help these countriesprioritize ICT investments in major sectors, such as manufacturing,transport, and housing, as part of their overall climate changestrategy. Finally, the Index scores will allow IDC to rank nationsfairly and transparently as they tackle the long-term challenge ofenvironmental and economic sustainability.
“We believe that wehave been able to normalize economic, energy, and ICT profiles todetermine a country’s ability to use ICT to reduce its CO2 emissions.Countries with diverse characteristics such as Australia, Brazil,Canada, China and the United States can at last be equally compared toeach other,” said Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC’sEnterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research.
“TheG20 countries have also been ranked into five tiers based on theirscores from our analysis. While everyone wants to be in a higher tier,we believe that it is more important to understand why each nation isin a particular tier.”
Six of the G20 nations come fromAsia/Pacific, including Japan, China, and India. “It is clear that Asiawill play a prominent role in the ICT Sustainability Index,” saidPhilip Carter, associate research director for Green IT &Sustainability Research. “We anticipate that some of the nations willsee the opportunity to use the Index as a positive tool towardslowering their CO2 emissions. We also think that some may feelchallenged by their Index ranking.”
Western Europe has thelargest concentration of industrial nations, and while there aresimilarities in their profiles, there are significant differences totheir overall ICT Sustainability Index Rankings. Chris Ingle, associatevice president, Consulting, said, “Europe is a diverse mix of old andnew nations that assert that they cannot be equally compared. We thinkwe have overcome that challenge with the Index and look forward tosharing the results.”
Finally, energy usage remains the leadingdriver for ICT executives to undertake any Green ICT and Sustainabilityinitiatives. Roberta Bigliani, research director at IDC EnergyInsights, stated, “It’s important for the G20 nations to have a clearroad map of what technologies they should be investing in since almost65 percent of all ICT executives believe that energy impacts theirability to be green.”
The Index will be accompanied by a reportoffering qualitative recommendations to policy makers on where ICTinvestments can contribute to achieving climate change goals.
