In a welcome change from the tide of vendor-sponsored green surveys, analyst IDC reports that IT executives' buying decisions are finally going green.

The findings come from IDC's Enterprise Panel, a fully IDC-owned and operated online group of professionals in IT who are involved in technology purchasing decisions. There are 5,000 active members spread across small to very large businesses around the globe.

The green IT survey revealed that the great majority of executives, 80 percent of them, think that green IT is growing in importance for their organization. Nearly half of them, 43 percent, say they consider a vendor's "greenness" when selecting their suppliers.

Other findings include:

• One half of the panel respondents claim that "reducing their organization's environmental impact" was important or very important to senior management,
• 42 percent of respondents said that IT will play a lead role or an important role in their organization's efforts to reduce their environmental impact,
• One-third of respondents rated an IT supplier's "greenness" as important or very important to the buying decision,
• 81 percent of respondents identify green products' ability to reduce operating costs as the most important reason for considering a supplier's greenness.

Frank Gens, IDC's SVP of Research, said: "The spread of Green IT continues as organizations gain a better understanding of the benefits of going green. Once a distant afterthought, economic advantages, including reductions in operational costs, are driving green IT adoption."

From energy efficiency to ease of recycling, a product's greenness is becoming a more important economic component in the IT buying equation. But it's the money savings that attract customers, not greenness per se. No climate change there then.