Resellers should figure out how to incorporate the drive for green IT into their value-added services.

Customers may require their service providers to measure and report the carbon impact of their products and services. Most new tenders, especially in the public sector, actually require that clients demonstrate their own carbon emissions as well as the emissions associated with the provision of their solutions.

In addition, many customers expect that any new IT implementation should reduce the business’s IT carbon emissions over the contract period and save money on energy and refrigerants.

IT service providers must not only do these things, but communicate that they are doing them in a highly effective manner. IT can also help abate far more emissions in a company than its own production and use generates.

IT manufacturers and services companies are looking for ways to deliver energy efficiency through smart buildings, smart manufacturing and smart grids as well as telecommuting, teleconferencing, e-commerce and document management. Resellers need to have a portfolio of green products and services that support such projects.

Resellers should also keep themselves educated on the latest carbon-reduction legislation.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) energy-efficiency programme is a mandatory scheme targeting large commercial and public sector organisations that use more than 6,000MWh of electricity per annum.

Resellers may fall under the CRC scheme if they run datacentres or outsourced services such as helpdesks, network management or even logistics facilities.

If so, they need to ensure they can report their carbon emissions to the Environment Agency from April 2010.

Companies need to have an accurate and transparent measurement process as there are significant fines for inaccuracy and failure to report.

One other feature of the CRC scheme is that the participants’ relative performance in terms of emission reduction will be made public and, inevitably, media and environmental groups will draw attention to the worst performers in the league table. Failing to tackle carbon emissions could prove costly to reputations as well as budgets.

The sooner companies start addressing their liabilities under the CRC scheme, and other measures that will inevitably follow, the lower their risks will be. It needs to be led from the board as the changes required to service this new demand will permeate throughout the organisation, from operations to sales.

IT is said to represent 10 per cent of total UK energy consumption. In two years, businesses have seen their energy bills rising, perhaps even doubling. They cannot control the energy markets but are taking steps towards increasing energy efficiency across their entire operation.

IT is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters. Recent estimates put the global carbon emissions of IT equipment at the same level as the aviation industry.

Ram Ramachander is chief operating officer at Greenstone Carbon Management