79% of IT decision makers cite the energy crisis as a future sustainability blocker

These findings add to the concerns currently experienced by decision makers who despite the energy pricing pressures have to ensure a successful delivery of green initiatives to meet their organisations and the UK’s ESG goals. 87% are confident that their IT infrastructure can deal with climate change impacts now, but this drops to 67% when looking ahead over the next five years.

With the UK’s ambition to cut carbon emissions and reach net zero by 2030, the current energy crisis poses a great risk to meeting the target on time. The energy market volatility, however, is not the only thing standing in the way of sustainability as Telehouse’s research revealed the true state of progress amongst organisations in where they currently are on their sustainability journey.

Worryingly, some businesses are yet to achieve their current sustainability goals, as over a third of organisations (34%) haven’t made progress on their objectives or haven’t yet defined them. Over half of businesses (57%) aren’t yet fully optimised to contribute to net zero targets and 52% aren’t using renewable energy sources. In addition, 52% of businesses don’t closely monitor their environmental footprint.

Greater strides need to be made in sustainability reporting too as only 20% of organisations currently focus on Scope 3 emissions and 43% cite room for improvement or little accuracy when reporting the impact of their IT infrastructure against sustainability roadmap.

Commenting on the research findings, Mark Pestridge, Senior Customer Experience Director, Telehouse says: “Our latest research reveals a perception gap among organisations that sustainability drives decision-making when practical steps haven’t been taken to enable this in reality. With the energy crisis set to wreak havoc on sustainability progress, businesses will need to explore the benefits of outsourced services to both prevent rising costs and tap into green initiatives.”

Economic pressure has already encouraged decision makers to explore new services, with 94% having outsourced their IT infrastructure, or planning to do so. These organisations are more likely to be confident in meeting business objectives and controlling costs during the energy crisis (89%), including 27% which state they are very confident.

The “Climate Crunch: How IT Leaders are Responding to Energy and Sustainability Demands” research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Telehouse Europe and surveyed 150 UK IT decision makers within enterprise organisations with over 100 employees to understand the impact of the intersecting threats of climate change and the ongoing energy crisis on British enterprises.