Insurance ranks highest for having a sustainable information technology (IT) strategy with well-defined goals and target timelines, new research shows.

The volume of “e-waste” generated globally is up 21% in five years and is expected to grow to 74 million tons in 2030, from 53.6 million tons in 2019.

Sustainable IT describes an environment-focused approach to hardware and software, as well as responsible mining of rare metals used to develop IT hardware, water conservation and circular economy principles.

A report from Capgemini focusing on how to make IT more sustainable gives the insurance sector a score of 24%, compared with an average of 18% across all sectors.

Insurance beat Banking (23%), Life Sciences and Healthcare (14%), Automotive (16%), Telecom (20%), Retail (19%), Consumer Products (19%), Industrial Manufacturing (17%), Energy and Utilities (17%) and the Public Sector (10%).

Capgemini’s survey of 1000 organisations found 89% recycle less than 10% of their IT hardware and in 2019, Australia’s per capita e-waste emission was 21.7 kilograms – more than the US, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Brazil, Italy, India, China and Singapore.

Data centres represented nearly 1% of the world’s energy demand in 2019.

“The digital acceleration that we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic will further increase the enterprise IT carbon footprint,” the report said. “The tech industry is urgently addressing this critical issue.”

Microsoft is experimenting with new approaches, for example its Project Natick which is testing the performance and energy efficiency of underwater datacentres.

“This focus on sustainable IT does not seem to be important for most organisations,” Capgemini said. “Sustainable IT can play a central part in tackling climate change and moving the world to a more resilient and sustainable future.”

“While many organisations are focusing on their organisation’s overall sustainability agenda, they are neglecting the critical issue of sustainable IT,” it said. “Organisations need to understand the carbon cost of our digital world and accelerate the move to sustainable systems.”

Only 6% of organisations surveyed were classified as highly mature when it came to sustainable IT.