EGHAM, — In the coming years, IT organizations will be more concerned with the green credentials of the products they use and the suppliers they work with, according to a leading IT research and advisory firm.

Gartner Inc. makes more than 100 IT and businesses predictions annually, and the environment plays a key role in three of its 10 main predictions for 2008 and beyond.

Although Gartner says its predictions won't be realized for at least a year, it makes them in an effort to encourage business leaders to take advantage of developments underway or coming on the horizon.

Following the trend of companies like Wal-Mart looking at the environmental standards of its suppliers, Gartner expects more than a third of IT organizations to have environmental concerns in their top six purchasing criteria by next year.

A shift to greener equipment not only lessens the eco impact of IT, but it also can provide cost savings though energy efficiency and reduced cooling needs. Gartner sees an eventual shift where energy efficiency trumps power efficiency.

As part of purchasing criteria, Gartner predicts that by 2010, 75 percent of IT buyers will look at the life-cycle energy and CO2 footprint of PCs when buying new hardware.

Although not all technology companies have such information now, Gartner is seeing companies starting to asses their products and question suppliers about energy use and carbon output. Gartner expects companies to start publicizing their products' life-cycle energy and carbon facts starting in 2009.

Lastly, three years from now, Gartner sees suppliers to large global companies having to prove how green they are with regular audits, not only to show what they are doing for the earth or the efficiency of their products, but to retain or improve their preferred supplier status.