Local consultancy the Ethan group has launched a series of IT environmental initiatives, to be sold as part of a pre-carbon trading plan.

Carbon trading allocates quotas for greenhouse gas emissions for countries, individuals and companies, and allows those which exceed their level to buy credits from those who are under. Environmentally efficient companies can then reap financial benefits.

The company is offering environmental management of lighting and cooling, intelligent network design to reduce power consumption, and on demand use of resources pre-emptive of the governments' carbon trading plans.

Ethan Group also created a Carbon Friendly accreditation which awards silver, gold and green merits for companies which have reduced emissions by 10 percent, 25 percent or are carbon neutral respectively.

Ethan Group managing director Andrew Rayment said it will make recommendations to federal government about price offsets of carbon trading in the IT industry.

"We will make IT recommendations about carbon trading alterations based on economic viability relative to the price of offsets as carbon neutrality is mandated and the price of carbon credits rises over time," Rayment said.

"We have been working on innovative solutions to help reduce carbon emissions for some time and have designed the certification system to measure the progress corporations are making in their quest to establish carbon neutral networks."

"With research showing that up to 65 percent of electricity consumption is attributable to IT systems, technology can be both the problem and the solution."

According to the World Bank's Carbon Finance Unit, global carbon trading has been increasing in recent years with 374 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide exchanged through projects in 2005, up 240 percent on last year.