At the beginning of this month, Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) published a report focusing on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry and its commitment to fighting climate change. The assessed sustainability practices included climate change strategies within companies as well as their initiatives to support their clients in climate saving activities.

Dennis Pamlin, Global Policy Advisor, WWF, called this report a “sober assessment of the situation in the IT industry” on his blog.

The report provides a good overview of existing climate change strategies in the ICT industry. It provides highlights but it points also to things that need improvement. There are certainly some leaders in the industry with well established strong environmental programmes, while at the same time there are companies which still need guidance and which are not familiar with the most efficient ways to combat climate change - yet.

I would like to stress the word YET. Climate change is a tremendous challenge which cannot be solved easily. Together with Fujitsu, BT and IBM we scored well on all five categories (environmental basics, supply chain basics, carbon basics, carbon delivery and carbon champions). We don’t want to rest on our laurels and we must maintain our commitment. The latest news is that we disclosed our suppliers’ carbon emissions, which Karl wrote about his blog entry.

It is great to see that many companies have developed good climate change strategies and we should learn from each other.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA