By Computerworld Hong Kong staff
Computerworld Hong Kong
December 16, 2009

HONG KONG - Asia Pacific countries can contribute in the reduction of 2.4 billion tons (or 41.4 percent) of CO2 emissions by 2020, said IDC Monday.

Having recently released its IDC’s G20 ICT Sustainability Index, the research house said that a total of 5.8 billion tons (Gigatons) of CO2 emissions can be eliminated through the focused use of ICT-based tools by 2020, said IDC Monday.

The six countries from the Asia Pacific region included in the study were Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea, according to IDC.

IDC ranked Japan as the only top-tier country in the Index with the score of 16, meaning of the G20 nations, Japan has the most potential of reducing greenhouse gases. Australia, China and Korea were ranked in the fourth-tier of the Index, while India and Indonesia were ranked in the fifth-tier.

“It is clear that Asia/Pacific as a region has a prominent role to play in dealing with climate change as a global issue,” said Philip Carter, associate research director for IDC’s Asia/Pacific Practice and Green IT & Sustainability Research.

“We are hopeful that governments in the region start to identify technology areas highlighted in the study and provide incentives for companies and consumers to start using them more specifically with this objective in mind. We also anticipate that more progressive policy makers will go a step further and begin to mandate the usage of some of these technologies and associated solutions in certain industries.”

In developing this research, IDC identified seventeen core technologies in four major economic sectors: energy generation and distribution, transport, buildings, and industry.

“The core technologies had to pass three tests: they had to be mature enough to provide real benefits within three years, support significant processing on a network, and be discrete independent technologies,” said Vernon Turner, senior vice president of IDC’s Enterprise Infrastructure, Consumer and Telecom Research.

In the Asia Pacific region, the importance of specific sectors and technologies varies significantly by country, said IDC. Transport-related sources constitute the largest share of CO2 reduction potential in Japan (30 percent) and supply chain and logistics optimization is the specific technology area expected to have the greatest impact in meeting the target for this sector, the analyst firm added.

By contrast, in China, the energy generation and distribution sector is where most opportunity lies to reduce CO2 emissions, and renewable energy management systems utilizing the smart grid is expected to drive most of the savings within this sector, said IDC.

In a separate study to determine how businesses and enterprises in the region are reacting to the increasing focus on green IT and sustainability, IDC conducted its 3rd annual Green IT and Sustainability Survey that included 450 organizations in Asia Pacific.

According to the survey findings, the cost of energy is still the key driver for organizations, with over 60 percent in the region indicated this to be the case, said IDC, adding that growth in IT Infrastructure was also indicated as a factor that is rising fast on the agenda, particularly In China.

Further local differences become clearer between countries within the Asia Pacific ‘jigsaw puzzle’, particularly when comparing emerging countries such as China against the more developed ones like Australia and Japan, said IDC. In Australia and Japan, senior executives (including the CEO, CIO and CTO) are taking the leading role in these initiatives, said IDC, adding that by comparison in the China, this responsibility is being pushed to IT Management.

According to the research house, the survey also identified three green IT and sustainability areas that respondents hope to initiate within the next 12 months, namely:

* 63 percent of Australian respondents, 62 percent of Chinese respondents and 45 percent of Japanese respondents intend to change customer behavior from print to online.

* 47 percent of Japanese respondents plan to initiate techniques for better managing systems or data such as server management duplication.

* 45 percent of Chinese respondents aim to implement a “Thin Client” or “Client Device” strategy.

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