How Green is Your IT Vendor?

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If you're looking to green your IT infrastructure, one of the most important things you can do is choose the right partner, one that takes the environment and climate change as seriously as you do. How to judge whether a partner does that? One way is to examine their own environmental practices. If they are green themselves, they're more likely to treat your IT green concerns seriously as well.

That's always tough to do. But a recent report can help. The recently released Climate Counts Company Scorecard from Climate Counts rates top hardware and Internet/Software vendors -- as well as companies in many other fields -- for how seriously they take climate change.

The group used a scale of 0 to 100 to rate companies. They used 22 separate criteria for their ratings. The report card examines, in the words of the group, how well the companies:

• Measured their climate "footprint"
• Reduced their impact on global warming
• Supported (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation
• Publicly disclosed their climate actions clearly and comprehensively

IBM came out clearly at the top of the technology heap, with a ranking of 77, followed by Canon with 74, Toshiba with 70, Sony with 68, Hewlett-Packard with 68 and Motorola with 66. Here's what the group had to say about the six top performers:

"Each of those companies has embraced what it means to be a corporate climate leader by addressing greenhouse gas emissions from the nascent idea for a new product throughout its entire life cycle. A significant percentage of the environmental impact of an electronics product --- much of it with a climate impact --- occurs before the product is ever purchased by the consumer."

IBM received particularly high marks for clearly setting emission goals with a target of more than a 10 percent reduction, putting a well-thought-out plan into effect, buy-in from its top-level executives and taking significant steps towards it goals.

At the very bottom is Apple with a lowly 11 ranking from receiving low marks on just about every criteria, including many zero ranks.

Apple, though, is the exception when it comes to electronics and computers. As a group, it was the highest-performing sector of any of the industries studied with the highest average -- 56 -- of all. The report concludes:

" ... the Electronics/Computer sector is emerging as an example for other industries. Energy and sustainability issues are hot topics within this industry, more so than in other sectors reviewed."

The Internet/Software category didn't fare nearly so well. As a group, it was rated under 50 percent. Google, with 55 points, was the top vendor here, followed by Microsoft with 38, Yahoo with 37, and Amazon and eBay both at a lowly 5.

Here's what the group says about Google:

"Google had the largest point increase in this sector and of any company scored by Climate Counts, gaining 38 points since the 2007 round. The company has moved to measure its emissions and develop significant reduction goals. Their investment in renewable energy technology and in ambitious research and development on energy efficiency helped boost the company’s score in 2008."

And here's its summation about Microsoft:

"Microsoft improved the scope of its greenhouse gas emissions assessments, which accounted for their increase in score this year."

If you'd like to see a summary of the report, click here. Click here for the full report.

The report is certainly a useful one, but obviously, it shouldn't be the only way you choose your IT partners. For one thing, it only judged a handful of companies and it only looked at the most well-known brands. So you won't find even big corporations such as Cisco, not to mention lesser-known vendors.

Still, it's worth considering the scorecard when deciding where to spend your IT dollars. And it's also worthwhile bringing up the scorecard itself to the companies you deal with, in the hope that will prod them to more effective action.

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