Green techies still wanted
Last year, a "green brigade" of banks were publicly stating their commitment to reducing carbon emissions through the use of more efficient technology. Surprisingly, they're still keen. And they even seem to be hiring as a result.
The green brigade included the likes of HSBC, Barclays, Citi and Lehman Brothers. Last year they were all investing significant resources in things like more efficient data centres (one of the largest consumers of energy) and technologies like virtualisation and blade servers.
Abigail Waudby, manager of the financial technology division at recruiters Project Partners, says that virtualisation projects are still a fertile source of recruitment.
"There's still a big focus on reducing carbon footprint and a significant part of that is using virtualisation to improve infrastructural efficiency," she says. "We're seeing a lot of roles being created around this."
A survey by Forrester Research suggested that 10% of firms were looking to increase their green IT expenditure, and 38% were maintaining the same levels of spend. Just 5% intended to cut back.
"Green IT is not a fad or bubble," asserts Christopher Mines, an analyst at Forrester.
This might be because banks are eager to save money rather than because they're concerned about the environment, says Chris Potter, partner in the technology division of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
"Certainly we are seeing organisations still investing in making sure their data centres use less power or that their trading floors are more efficient, but the primary driver for this is cost-reduction," he says.
