CDW: Small businesses slowly embracing Green IT

Although small businesses have been slow to adopt green IT policies, a new survey from CDW suggests that is about to change.

So far, the data shows, only 23 percent of smaller companies with fewer than 100 employees have embraced Green IT practices. Approximately 31 percent plan to do so in the next two years, however. The survey from which these numbers are gleaned was conducted in July 2009 among 1,048 IT decision makers.

How does this compare with larger companies? Among midsize businesses with 100 to 999 employees, about 44 percent of IT decision makers have already adopted some sort of Green IT policy, and the number jumps up to 44 percent of large enterprises with more than 1,000 people on their payrolls.

Cost concerns still remain the biggest hurdle to Green IT solutions (54 percent of small businesses said it was their top concern). Lack of expertise in Green IT (22 percent) and complexity of keeping of with Green IT policies and technology (21 percent) were two other significant factors that have hindered small-business adoption.

You can read more details of CDW's survey at this link.

Maybe all this is a question of semantics. After all, many businesses are now shying away from the Green IT phrase and talking about broader sustainability policies across their companies, some of which happen to be enabled by green technology. But I still think one of the big reasons that small businesses have been slow to adopt Green IT is because the major high-tech players haven't really focused on helping them, especially when it comes to disposing of older technologies.