New research finds senior business leaders expect the looming economic recession to hamper efforts to reduce energy consumption, including 'green' IT purchasing habits. A survey of senior UK business leaders has found that, with a pessimistic economic outlook, they are 'too busy to be green'. That's bad news from a technology perspective, where expenditure on installing energy efficient equipment is likely to suffer when UK companies are saying more difficult economic conditions are having a direct impact on their efforts to save energy. While installing energy efficient lighting topped the list of action taken by 53 per cent of respondents to a survey by energy company E. Only 34 per cent say they will be taking action this year, where nearly half say economic recession will impact their ability to be "greener" ON carried out by YouGov, lower heating and air conditioning consumption - which is normally a big part of data centre expenditure - and installing more energy efficient equipment were second and third most popular among 46 and 45 per cent respectively. And another survey of technology executives from 148 companies around the world released last week by consultancy, PriceWaterhouseCoopers found one in five (18 per cent) claim they practice environmentally preferred IT purchasing, where organisations select products and services that have a lesser effect on the environment than competitive products and services. Within the next two years, the Going Green: Sustainable Growth Strategies research carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit said this figure will rise to over half (53 per cent). And this is backed by research firm Gartner, who last year said energy costs typically make up less than 10 per cent of an overall IT budget. But it warned that, if left unchecked, this could rise to more than 50 per cent in the next few years. However, with 71 per cent of senior business leaders predicting that the UK is either heading for, or already in, a recession, the E.ON survey of 500 UK businesses also revealed that less companies are planning to take action on reducing energy consumption in 2008 when compared to previous years. In 2006, 43 per cent of companies surveyed by E.ON said they took energy action. This peaked last year, rising to over half (52 per cent) of respondents. But only 34 per cent say they will be taking any action during this year, where nearly half say economic recession will impact their ability to be 'greener' by forcing them to cut back on time and resources dedicated to saving energy. And just one in eight actually plans to increase their energy saving initiatives in 2008 to help save money. And although energy is more of an issue than 12 months ago for one in five businesses, 86 per cent of all those questioned still didn't have someone dedicated to managing their energy use.