The report claimed that VARs should stop focusing on traditional areas such as hardware reduction, and expand into issues such as carbon counting and management.

Pete Foster, director of the report, published in association with analyst firm Pierre Audoin Consultants, said: “The area of carbon counting and management will get ever more complex, particularly where employee travel is concerned, and many firms will have to change their logistics to comply. There will be a lot more emphasis on carbon emissions.

“It will be a slow climb convincing many firms to reduce their power usage, but when the Climate Change Bill comes into force next year, demands for other green IT services are going to come quite rapidly and VARs need to be prepared.”

In the same week, European Commission telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding said the IT community would play a vital part in helping to reduce emissions.

“Energy efficiency is likely to be a significant contributor to cutting carbon emissions by 2020 and the IT sector is pivotal in reaching those goals,” she said. “IT has a key role to play in enabling energy efficiency improvements across the whole economy, thus lowering emissions and fighting climate change.”

Ann-Marie Hill, environmental adviser at storage distributor Hammer, said: “IT managers are now starting to realise there is no avoiding green issues in their role.

“They are starting to discover that green issues are becoming an important part of their remit, and will find they are responsible for delivering on green measures as much as any other part of their day-to-day job.

“The demand to deliver more sophisticated and energy efficient facilities that offer environmentally responsible features will only increase with time,” she added.

However, Des Lekerman, managing director of reseller Eurodata Systems, said: “The green agenda is very important, but a lot of firms are focusing on the bottom line. Green IT is a corporate responsibility rather than a business driver.”