2012 Green Survey shows influence of sustainability on businesses

More organisations worldwide are building sustainability into their service provider selection and purchasing processes, according to the results from the 2012 Rackspace Green Survey, conducted by Rackspace Hosting.

This year, customers from 24 countries responded to the survey, including participants from the UK, New Zealand, Australia and Brazil. When questioned on the importance of sustainability versus cost, a margin of only 8 percentage points separates responses from customers in the US from those in the other 23 countries: 72% of US respondents and 80% of international respondents say that ‘greener is better.’

Rackspace’s findings point to an increasingly established trend to embrace and include sustainability practices within the purchasing process. When it comes to influencing purchasing decisions, 72% of the US respondents said they believe sustainability is important in selecting a service provider as well as influencing a purchasing decision. In the rest of the world, 91% build sustainability into their purchasing decisions on either a periodic or standard basis. Countries outside the US seem to put a greater emphasis on weighting sustainability as part of purchasing decisions

“Our global survey has shown that sustainability is becoming a key factor when businesses are selecting a technology service provider. Environmental credentials are no longer a secondary concern and are moving from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘need to have’,” said Mark Randall, Rackspace Country Manager, Australia and New Zealand.

“We were particularly thrilled that Australia and New Zealand are leading the way: 80% said that ‘greener is better’ versus 72% in the US. Innovative startups, online retailers, software developers and rich media companies are fast realising solid partners in their supply chain means lower risk, more efficiency and more reward.

“Rackspace believes that all decisions should benefit people, pocket and planet. We were thrilled to see that our customers agree, with more than 53% echoing this view.”

Rackspace randomly selected 2000 global customers, of which 232 responded.

See the full results of Rackspace’s latest Green Survey.