IT professionals should get a better idea of how much energy their department uses and attempt to reduce it to reduce their effect on the environment, it has been suggested.

Some companies spend some 85 per cent of their energy bills paying for the consumption of their IT department, according to software giant Sun.

Due to this, the firm's UK and Ireland commercial director, Sue Wilkinson, called for extra importance to be placed on energy usage by IT departments.

"We all know what we pay at home but there is very little responsibility coming out of the IT department when it comes to business and the reason for this is that they don't pay for the energy," she told the Carbon Footprint IT Summit in London last week.

"I am putting out a challenge to you all to look at your own environments and see what you can do."

The IT industry creates a similar amount of carbon emissions as the aviation with two per cent of worldwide totals, according to environmental charity Global Action Plan.

But as well as helping fight global warming, the reduction of IT energy use could also benefit firms through a reduction in their bills.