-- CLP Power Hong Kong Limited

-- Insurance Australia Group Limited

-- Reliance Communications

The inaugural Asia Pacific awards attracted submissions from organisations across the region, representing a wide variety of industry sectors including energy and utilities, finance and insurance, telecommunications, education and distribution.

Gartner research vice president Bettina Tratz-Ryan, who leads Gartner’s environmental sustainability research agenda, will visit Sydney to present the award at the company's Infrastructure, Operations and Data Centre Summit next month.

The award aims to promote excellence in green IT principles within the data centre and recognise organisations in the Asia Pacific region that have demonstrated best practice in using green technologies and practices.

Gartner managing vice president and conference chair Matthew Boon said the quality of award entries showed that data centre managers in Asia Pacific are taking the environmental sustainability challenge seriously.

“Many organisations we talk to across the Asia Pacific region currently cite green data centre initiatives around power and cooling, corporate responsibility and budget efficiencies as big priorities for them. It is reassuring to see such innovative and quality initiatives from all the entrants and particularly the finalists,” Mr Boon said.

Despite perceptions that green IT projects slipped down the list of business priorities due to the tougher economic climate, a 2009 Gartner survey found that the downturn had no impact on green IT initiatives for 61 percent of large organisations in Asia Pacific. In Australia, 51 percent of those surveyed expected their green IT investments to remain the same, with another 38 percent expecting increased investment in this area during 2009.

Award entries were evaluated by Gartner analysts and the finalists will present their case study to conference delegates at the Gartner Infrastructure, Operations and Data Centre Summit. Attendees will vote to select a winner who will be announced at the conference.

The Gartner Infrastructure, Operations and Data Centre Summit will be held at the Sydney Convention Centre on 24 and 25 March 2010. Now in its fifth year in Australia, the Summit is designed to help IT managers meet a new set of challenges, through operational transformation, virtualisation, disaster recovery, storage and server consolidation, systems management and improved use of power and cooling. For more information, please visit www.gartner.com/ap/datacentre