IT advisory group Forrester is predicting a massive uptake in the number of businesses employing Green IT consulting services. It suggests European spending will peak at $2.1bn in 2014.
According to Forrester analyst Christopher Mines, European business leaders are at the vanguard of introducing environmentally-conscious practices.
At first, efforts to make IT greener will be focussed on data centre energy efficiency. "It's top-of-mind for most clients because problems like growth or power capacity limits, and returns like energy cost savings, are highly tangible," said Mines.
But over the coming years, as green business practices become more deeply ingrained, more attention will fall on other areas of IT, which "use and waste at least as much power" as datacentres, he added. Other areas ripe for improvement are print services, PC energy efficiency and the introduction of systems management tools capable of monitoring energy use.
"Strategists at a broad set of IT services providers – from datacentre specialists like HP and Intel to corporate strategy consultants like Accenture and Deloitte – are positioning to participate in this nascent market," concluded Mines.
