Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
The information technology industry is way behind in planning for the rapidly approaching era of green accounting, an era in which every business will need new networks and/or software that precisely measure the emissions generated by all aspects of their operations, from procuring raw supplies to delivering the finished item. But that’s about to change, with IT firms that provide not just software but also the trained personnel to install and maintain this equipment sharing in a payday of hundreds of billions of dollars.
That’s according to Bruce McCabe, managing director Australian IT research firm S2 Intelligence Pty Ltd. In an interview with EnergyTechStocks.com, McCabe said a number of IT giants should do well meeting companies’ new “green accounting” needs, among them: IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, Logica, Oracle and SAP.
But McCabe emphasized that over and above the big IT firms’ big payday, many thousands of small IT service firms around the world should also do extremely well, as providers of specialized instrumentation and other components in packaged solutions, and as the actual installers and maintainers of these new systems.
McCabe, whose Sydney-based research firm just issued a report on the future of green accounting entitled “The Future of Business 2008-2018,” said college graduates anywhere in the world who have combined environmental and computing science skills will make “a lot of money,” as the IT industry frantically tries to “skill up,” as McCabe put it.
Investors who wish to follow the rise of green accounting should keep their eyes on at least three companies in particular, McCabe said. Wal-Mart is now examining the carbon footprints of its suppliers, including even in China. Ford “appears to be an early multinational leader,” McCabe said, noting that the carmaker has begun finer operational measurement and information collection. Perhaps farthest along is British supermarket chain Tesco, which McCabe said “is showing leadership in the context of retail and has begun serious investigations on how to implement carbon labeling, which will of course have flow-on effects to all suppliers.”