BT joins growing list of green consultants

More and more companies are grasping the importance of a green strategy to address swelling energy bills and power shortages, as well as to shrink their carbon footprints. The next logical step, of course, is planning a strategy to tackle the problem, which is no easy task, considering just how many facets of a company’s operations play into the big green picture.

Not surprisingly, vendors are now lining up to help in developing green blueprints for shrinking carbon footprints and lowering energy consumption. Sun, for example, unveiled a set of services and tools last month as part of its Eco Innovation Initiative. IBM has boarded the green-consulting train, as has consulting firms such as A.T. Kearney, which just announced its plans to offer “carbon-neutral consulting.”

And just today, BT’s Global Services sustainability practice launched a service to help large organizations reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint.

According to BT, the service will “take into account the way people’s work patterns (such as their travel and IT use) contribute to CO2 emissions, and how business operations, shared services, and building infrastructure add to an organization’s carbon footprint.” As part of the service, BT will help companies assess a variety of business scenarios to determine what benefits they might reap through, for example, virtualizing the call center or holding virtual meetings so as to cut travel.

“Importantly, when looking at clients’ carbon emissions, we explore both the required behavior change as well as any adjustments to their infrastructure,” said Scott Cain, head of IT transformation for BT Global Services, in a written statement. “Many of our customers have yet to mobilize significantly in this area and can benefit from BT’s learning and capabilities to help them in their development of more sustainable business solutions.”