Chicago (IL) – Sometimes perception is all that matters in the business world, even if it contradicts reality. GreenFactor, which is claimed to be the first global study of IT decision makers on green products and marketing reveals current perceptions on green technology and some of the findings, including which IT company is believed to be the greenest IT company, may be surprising to some and we believe that especially one CEO will be very happy to read that is company is perceived to be forest green despite the fact that other studies have criticized the company for its lack of green initiatives. Who do you think is perceived as being green – and who not? Let’s find out.   

It is almost scary how much marketing force green initiatives we see every day. On TV, you see more companies from the oil and chemical industry highlighting their green efforts. There no single day in a week on which we don’t get a note form an IT company and its latest ideas on how to reduce its carbon footprint and overall impact on the environment.  But not every strategy works, survey results published today by Strategic Oxygen, GCI Group and Cohn & Wolfe.

Leaving actual green efforts behind, the study completely focused on perceptions and beliefs of about 3500 enterprise IT decision makers including CXOs, CIOs, IT Managers and Line of Business Managers in 11 countries. The study looked at 26 enterprise technology brands.

The publishers found that seven IT companies are considered as especially active in the green technology field. The pack is led by Apple, which was described as “green” by 21% of respondents, and is followed by HP (21%), Microsoft (21%), IBM (20%), Intel (20%), Sony (20%) and Dell (19%). If we consider the margin of error, there is virtually no statistical difference between those seven companies. However, it is particularly surprising that Apple comes out on top – despite the fact that Greenpeace continuously criticizes Apple for not doing enough for the environment, the fact that the company has been criticized by ClimateCounts.org and such hiccups like the discovery that the company was accused of using illegal toxins to manufacture the iPhone.

There was no further information why Apple is considered to be the green leader and we wonder whether the innocent white color on many of its products, its clean design or simply Steve Jobs’ blog may be influencing the public opinion. We have no doubt though that the survey result will produce many smiles in Cupertino today and Steve Jobs may be relieved to see that his company is believed to be in the lead in this category as well. Hopefully, the company will follow with more efforts to become an in fact greener company as well.

Also noteworthy is the fact that Microsoft and Google have a statistically significant higher perception of being “green” than all other software and Internet companies included in the study. Google comes in at #8 (15%), while Oracle (6%), Symantec (5%) and SAP (3%) are at the bottom of the list.  “It’s interesting that Google, a company that does not produce tangible hardware or software, but consumes a significant amount of resources appears so highly on this list,” said Michael Gale, CEO of Strategic Oxygen. “They’ve clearly done a good job of demonstrating they are working hard to innovate new, more power efficient solutions.”

The bottom of the green list includes Alcatel-Lucent (2%), Nortel (2%) and EMC (2%).  The authors of the study said that, despite the current ranking, “no single enterprise IT brand is perceived as a clear green leader globally” at this time.

The GreenFactor paper also outlined a few other interesting finding such as perceived barriers of adoption of green technology, which included price (38%), political disagreements (25%), and the fact that efficiency is believed not to offset costs (22%). Price was the top barrier in nine of eleven countries. Respondents indicated that most likely green technology purchases would include laptops (74%), desktop PCs (72%), servers (64%), storage (63%) and network hardware (63%).

Globally, CIOs state they “definitely will” look to purchase “green” technology products of some kind this next year at a higher rate (48.3%) than CXOs (39.4%), IT Managers (37.3%) and Line of Business Managers (37.1%). CIOs also show a higher affinity for “green” laptops. They “definitely will” look to purchase “green” laptops this next year at a higher rate (38.8%) than CXOs (32.3%), Line of Business Managers (30.3%) and IT Managers (28.1%).

There are also differences in geographies. 22.3% of respondents in India said they would both expect and accept to pay at least a 5% premium for a green product, while the number declined to 14.9% in the U.S., 13.9% in Mexico, 12.9% in the UK, 12.3% in France, 11.9% in Australia, 8.4% in Brazil, 8.0% in Canada, 7.9% in Germany, 6.4% in Japan and 4.8% in Italy.

Not me

Jun 17, 2008 15:32     

I'm not willing to pay 1 cent more for "green" products, but hey maybe that is just me. I see no reason for us to be charged extra for a company cleaning up its act.
crawlgsx report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Is there a link to view how these percentages are supposed to add up?

Jun 17, 2008 16:13     

The statement: "The pack is led by Apple, which was described as “green” by 21% of respondents, and is followed by HP (21%), Microsoft (21%), IBM (20%), Intel (20%), Sony (20%) and Dell (19%). " ...appears to add up to 142%. Yah that's right, I didn't even use a calculator. Although if I had, it would be solar powered so I could be at the top of the group. [You could have though thought about the fact that respondents could give multiple answers. -ed]

Nick B. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0