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Firms in the IT and telecoms sector are increasingly measuring the return on investment (ROI) on their environmental and green working strategies, says research firm Frost & Sullivan.

Frost & Sullivan says that while some argue that the economic downturn has caused companies to push the "green agenda" down the priority list, its research reveals that companies in the ICT sector are actually paying more attention to environmental initiatives - to cut costs, improve their competitive advantage and enforce brand loyalty.

However, given tighter budgets and higher stakeholder expectations, the researcher said such initiatives needed to demonstrate a positive ROI.

Frost & Sullivan's annual "Sustainability in Telecoms: Return on Environmental Investments" report focuses on a selection of companies that have "adopted a longer term, measurable and sustainable way of doing business".

Firms covered in the study include British Telecom, France Telecom, Telefonica, Swisscom, Alcatel-Lucent, IBM, NSN, Ericsson and Huawei.

"It is encouraging that most of the companies that participated in the research have started to develop their own frameworks [in measuring the ROI on environmental investments] and even gone ahead to seek accreditation from various industry bodies," said Frost & Sullivan.

“IBM seems to be the most advanced in its measurements of environmental investments, while British Telecom should finalise its ROI models for a range of solutions in the run up to the 2012 Olympics,” said Frost & Sullivan analyst Sharifah Amirah. “In the longer term, social and environmental investments will start to feature in a company’s financial statements/audited reports, similar to the triple bottom line accounting approach.”