IDC will present its ICT Sustainability IndexTM at a press conference in at the Skuespilhuset in Copenhagen, Denmark on December 10, 2009. The index scores a country's ability to use information and communications technologies (ICT) to effectively reduce its CO2 emissions.

The ICT Sustainability Index ranks the individual countries that make up the G20, who also account for over seventy percent of the world’s gross domestic product and the world’s carbon emissions.

IDC believes that the ICT Sustainability Index will help these countries prioritize ICT investments in major sectors, such as manufacturing, transport, and housing, as part of their overall climate change strategy. The Index scores will allow IDC to rank nations fairly and transparently as they tackle the long-term challenge of environmental and economic sustainability.

“We believe that we have been able to normalize economic, energy, and ICT profiles to determine 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 to each other,” said Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC's Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research. “The G20 countries have also been ranked into five tiers based on their scores from our analysis. While everyone wants to be in a higher tier, we believe that it is more important to understand why each nation is in a particular tier.”

Six of the G20 nations come from Asia/Pacific, including Japan, China, and India.

“It is clear that Asia will play a prominent role in the ICT Sustainability Index,” said Philip Carter, associate research director for Green IT & Sustainability Research. “We anticipate that some of the nations will see the opportunity to use the Index as a positive tool towards lowering their CO2 emissions. We also think that some may feel challenged by their Index ranking.”

Western Europe has the largest concentration of industrial nations, and while there are similarities in their profiles, there are significant differences to their overall ICT Sustainability Index Rankings.

Chris Ingle, associate vice president, Consulting, said, “Europe is a diverse mix of old and new nations that assert that they cannot be equally compared. We think we have overcome that challenge with the Index and look forward to sharing the results.”

Finally, energy usage remains the leading driver for ICT executives to undertake any Green ICT and Sustainability initiatives.

Roberta Bigliani, research director at IDC Energy Insights, said, “It’s important for the G20 nations to have a clear road map of what technologies they should be investing in since almost 65% of all ICT executives believe that energy impacts their ability to be green.”

The Index will be accompanied by a report offering qualitative recommendations to policy makers on where ICT investments can contribute to achieving climate change goals.

About the press conference

Results of the first IDC ICT Sustainability IndexTM will be released at an international press conference to be held Thursday, 10 December 2009 (13:30 - 17:00 CET) at the Skuespilhuset (The Playhouse) in Copenhagen, Denmark. An event summary, agenda, and press registration can be found online at the link below.

About the report

The ICT Sustainability Index is part of IDC's holistic Green initiative, designed to help decision makers understand the role of technology in addressing the challenges and opportunities amidst today's energy, environment, and sustainability requirements. Since being launched in 2008, the initiative has produced important research on data center power management and automation, the promotion of green procurement in Asia/Pacific, and document management policies in the enterprise. IDC's Industry Insights companies have also done ground-breaking research on how vertical industries from manufacturing and healthcare to retail and government can use the latest IT tools and services to support a company's overall green initiative. In addition, IDC's Green Recycling and Asset Disposal for the Enterprise (G.R.A.D.E.) certification process assesses the functions and tasks IT Asset Disposal (ITAD) vendors to ensure that they meet the strictest regulatory, security, and environmental standards.

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