Too many enterprises in denial about carbon management

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A high proportion of IT professionals responsible for “green IT” programs are unsure whether their enterprises are considering carbon pricing, according to Gartner. A recent Gartner survey found that 36% of respondents that were responsible for green IT programs in enterprises said it was possible, or they didn’t know, if carbon pricing was influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24 months.

A total of 45.7% of respondents said that carbon pricing was not influencing their organization’s planning, while 18.3% said it was influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24 months.

The survey results indicate that for most countries, the percentage of enterprises planning ahead for carbon pricing goes beyond those obliged to consider it under established regulations. However, Gartner advised IT management teams that haven’t already done so, to start building the processes and information systems to gather the necessary data as this can be time-consuming and organizations are likely to be subject to carbon reporting and pricing in the future.

In an international survey completed in December 2008, Gartner asked 626 enterprises about their plans for carbon reporting and pricing, and current and future implementation of carbon reporting, tracking or management systems. The respondents represented an even spread of sectors and company sizes from 1,000 to more than 10,000 employees.

The Obama administration is now talking about a carbon cap and trade scheme, along the lines of the EU ETC and Australian CPRS in which enterprises are obliged to buy and/or sell tradable carbon certificates—trading at Euro 12/metric tons as of March 2009, but anticipated to rise as carbon allowances get squeezed. This kind of scheme and others such as the UK’s Carbon Reduction Commitment result in a price being placed on a metric ton of carbon.

The survey provided some noteworthy responses from individual countries when respondents asked if the possibility of carbon pricing is influencing their organization’s planning for the next 24 months. The UK and France recorded some of the lowest percentages at 7.9% and 10.5%, respectively, while in India and China, 21.1% and 20% of enterprises, respectively, indicated that carbon pricing was influencing planning. Gartner analysts said that this is particularly surprising for the UK given that the country’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) goes into effect in 2010 and is estimated to affect 5,000 enterprises.

Gartner also asked the same respondents about their carbon reporting, tracking and management systems, as well as their intentions to implement or extend such systems. The results showed that, as a region, Western Europe is best prepared, with 32% saying that they have some kind of system in place—twice as many as the Asia/Pacific region or the US. However, there were some stark contrasts with 2.6% of French enterprises, compared with 74.4% of German enterprises having such systems in place. Most of those enterprises with systems in place had in-house developments (mostly spreadsheets).

A further question asked of the respondents was whether they would be implementing or extending carbon reporting, tracking or management software during the next 18 months. The results showed that most enterprises are not yet thinking about how carbon pricing or reporting requirements will affect their business and have no plans to implement a carbon reporting, tracking or management system to give them visibility of their greenhouse gas emissions in this period.