Are you buying the greenest IT? It's all relative

Hewlett-Packard may currently be the biggest high-tech company on earth, but Dell is winning the mindshare battle (for now) when it comes to green IT, according to a new GreenFactor business survey.

The poll of CIOs and Senior IT Managers by Strategic Oxygen and Cohn & Wolfe covered close to 3,500 high-level executives in more than 11 countries. The biggest factor in Dell's win, actually, was its extensive recycling programs. But there actually is a very small margin separating the No. 1 company (Dell at 30 percent) from the No. 2 company (HP at 26 percent). And, in fact, the two have simply flip-flopped their positions in the past year. IBM, Microsoft and Apple round out the top five.

The survey results reinforces something that I've been saying for a very long time about the whole green IT concept. That is, IT buyers will be influenced not only about what's actually making up the products they're selecting (the Procurement Factor) but they also care about the green business credentials of the company they're buying their products from (the Corporate Responsibility Factor).

The new research likewise notes that IT buyers judge green IT according to  "Brand Products" and "Brand Operations." Brand Product covers issues such as materials used in the product, energy efficiency, packaging and recycling programs. Brand Operations covers things the manufacturer is doing for its own business such as building green facilities, promoting green business practices and so on.

Brand Product factors get the edge in ultimate purchasing decisions, according to the research.

By the way, the researchers conducting the survey DID define "green technology" for the respondents. Attributes included design for reduced power consumption, recycling programs and the types of materials used to construct the equipment.

You can learn more about the study here.

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