The work focuses on critical ICT-based technologies: technologies that are currently mature enough to be implemented within three years (given investment and government approval); have network and processing bandwidth requirements; and are standalone technologies, applicable to specific industries and usage patterns.
According to the IDC findings on these technologies, ICT-based technologies, if used intensively, have the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 25% in the G20 countries, compared with 2006 baseline emissions. Significant reductions can be made across all the sectors surveyed by IDC such as energy generation and distribution, buildings, transport, and industry. Integrating renewable energy into energy distribution using smart grids, ICT-enabled smart building systems, ICT-optimized supply chains, and variable motor controls in industrial machinery are the technologies for reducing emissions in each of the sectors surveyed.
Roberta Bigliani, research director of IDC Energy Insights, said: “ICT-based technologies have considerable potential to reduce carbon emissions. The advantage of the technologies we have identified is that they are already reasonably mature, if not widely implemented. Given that carbon emissions reductions made quickly have more impact on global warming than those that take longer to implement, we recommend that governments and industry immediately evaluate and implement these technologies.”
IDC is a provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.
