About seven in ten business leaders (69%) believe that half of their IT investments impact their organization’s sustainability, according to a recent study.

In a report published by IBM in September, entitled “IT Sustainability: Survey of global business leaders, September 2023,” four percent of participants said that 100% of their IT investments impact their company’s sustainability.

Close to 40% of those surveyed (38%) said they are planning to invest a lot more money in their sustainability-related IT budget over the next 12 months. Another 48% of participants said they would only invest a little bit more. Only 2% of responders said they are planning to invest less money in this area.

Reducing energy costs was cited as the most important prompt for investing in IT focused on sustainability (55%). Half of the participants said that improving their environmental efforts was the top reason they wanted to invest in sustainability IT Improved reporting accuracy was the third most popular choice at 49%.

The survey also showed that CEOs and other C-suite level executives were often responsible for making these types of investment decisions, with 14% of chief executive officers claiming to be the primary decision-maker when it comes to investing in IT sustainability solutions. About three in ten CEOs (28%) said they played a role in implementing these types of sustainability tools and solutions into their business.

“IT for sustainability is a priority at large global companies, often including oversight or decision-making at the highest levels of leadership,” wrote the IBM report's authors. “Business leaders see a strong connection between IT and sustainability, are expecting to increase investment in IT for sustainability, and are confident in their ability to track and execute their sustainability goals.”

Data for the survey was collected by polls conducted online by Morning Consult during August 2023. Morning Consult interviewed 3,250 business leaders from 13 countries around the world for the study. Eligible participants had to be employed at companies with at least 1,000 workers and had to qualify as either an IT decision-maker or sustainability strategy manager.