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Energy and Telco Markets Lead the Way on Eco Responsibility

Power and Cost Drive Uptake of Environmental Business Practices and Green Influences IT Purchase Decisions

Sydney Australia, 17 July 2007 - Almost two thirds of businesses have environmental or green practices in place, according to a survey of Sun Microsystems' Australian and New Zealand customer base released today. The study of more than 1,500 Sun customers, from 758 organisations was commissioned to provide insight into attitudes towards and initiatives to progress eco responsible business and IT practices.

A significant portion of those surveyed came from ANZ's large and medium sized organisations* and covered a wide range of sectors, including media, manufacturing, health, education, government and finance. It highlighted that the energy and telecommunications sectors are early green adopters - with 85 and 75 per cent of companies respectively already underway with eco responsible initiatives.

"It's almost impossible to avoid the environmental debate today. Most interestingly, this research identifies what motivates businesses to implement environmental business practices and measures what has already been done to date. And, more specifically for Sun, it uncovers what our customers need in order to help green the IT department," said Jim Hassell, managing director, Sun Microsystems ANZ.

The study highlighted that while many (60 per cent) companies have environmental business practices in place, only 27 per cent have green plans in place for the IT department. Looking forward, however, 21 per cent plan to launch green initiatives in the next 12 months and more than two thirds of those surveyed said their IT department evaluates a vendor's green policy before investing.

"While it's hugely encouraging that almost two thirds of organisations have existing eco plans across the business, it's no surprise that green technology initiatives are lagging behind. For a large organisation, greening the IT department and data centre can take up to 18 months. The fact that 48 per cent of customers surveyed already have or will deploy eco technology within the next 12 months is extremely positive."

"At large companies, 20 per cent of total energy costs can typically be attributed to IT - from the data centre, to the PC. Skeptics will argue that it's futile or indeed impossible to green power hungry facilities such as data centres. In our experience, a medium sized company can save hundreds of thousands in energy costs through eco technology. There's no doubt that reducing power consumption, lowering carbon emissions and saving costs is beneficial for business, as well as the environment," said Hassell.

Key findings of the survey include:

Eco Responsible Business Practice (Company-Wide)

* 60% of respondents have environmental/green practices already in place
* 37% believe that eco responsibility is very important, 23% important and only 2% say that it is of no importance to their organisation

Greening the IT department

* 27% have dedicated green IT plans in place
* 21% plan to deploy eco responsible technology in the next 12 months
* 30% are looking into it
* 22% have no plans at all

Drivers for uptake of green technology (multiple answers allowed, top 4 below)

* Reduced power consumption - 75%
* Lower costs - 73%
* Lower carbon emission and environmental impact (eg recycling) - 56%
* Improved systems performance and utilisation - 55%

Strategies that would help green the IT department (multiple answers allowed, top 4 below)

* Energy efficient technologies - 80%
* Power and cooling solutions - 63%
* Systems virtualisation - 60%
* Data centre consolidation - 48%

Predictably, the bigger the organisation the greener they are: 76 per cent of large organisations (5000 employees plus) have green business practices in place, compared with 39 per cent of companies with fewer than 100 staff.

A large majority (77 per cent) of respondents already do, or would like to use recycling programs, however, just under a third are unaware of available programs or options.

"Recycling starts with design - if a product isn't built to be recycled, it's highly unlikely that it actually can be. We're serious about eco responsibility - from the design of our products to ease recycling, to the reduction of our corporate greenhouse gas emissions. We encourage our employees to work from home, share offices and work at satellite locations. So much so that globally 55% of our employees have given up their offices reducing our carbon emissions by 30,000 tons," said Hassell.

* Of those known, more than 80 per cent of respondents were from companies of 250+ employees
Survey Methodology

* Sun Microsystems conducted this survey online during May 2007
* It generated 1,533 responses from 758 organisations across Australia and New Zealand
* Respondents roles range from systems analysts to network managers and executive office

The sample is broken down as follows:

* Industry
* Number of employees
* Job title
* Australia
* New Zealand

About Sun's Green Policies


Sun's Eco Product Development

In addition to reducing our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission by 20% by 2012 (see Sun's CSR Report), Sun is committed to ongoing eco technology and product development:

* SunRay thin client solutions consume only 4 watts of power - significantly less than the 100+ watts a regular PC uses
* The UltraSPARC T1 processors in Sun Fire™ T1000 and T2000 servers draw about as much power as a household light bulb, deliver the best performance per watt of any processor available, and outperform competitors' systems delivering up to twice the performance, using 1/3 the energy and 1/2 the space. The
* UltraSPARC T1 processor was awarded the 2006 Environment Award by The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Madrid, the Confederación Empresarial - CEIM (Business Confederation), and the Autonomous Community of Madrid, Spain
* Project Blackbox, the world's first virtualised datacentre, is designed to be 20% more energy efficient than traditional datacenters through its innovative water-cooled design
* With a focus on recycling and re-using components, less than 5% of all products returned enter the waste stream

Sun's Green Work Practices

* Sun was named 'greenest computer company on the planet' - Forbes April 07
* More than 17,000 Sun employees (over 55% of the workforce) participate in the Sun™ Open Work practice services, Sun's location-independent work program that saves 30,000 tonnes of GHG emissions per year by reducing commuter travel
* By adopting our own SunRay thin client desktops Sun saves US$6million per year in electricity costs
* 2005 EPA Award: 4th in Nation for Commuter Friendliness

Sun's Energy Usage

More than 90 per cent of Sun's carbon footprint comes from energy use. We are committed to openly sharing our energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions data and encourage other organisations to do the same. For more information, please see: www.sun.com/eco.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision - "The Network Is The Computer" - guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world's most important markets. Sun's philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.