The Issue:

“Green IT” is a catchall phrase that combines two different goals.
The first goal is to reduce an organization’s overall costs, primarily
by reducing energy consumption. For many companies, reducing energy
costs is the primary motivation behind a green IT initiative. As one IT
executive puts it: “Green IT is all about saving greenbacks”.

The second goal is to reduce an organization’s overall carbon
footprint for policy reasons beyond saving money, such as reducing
environmental impact, or supporting a policy of national energy
conservation. Many organizations—particularly not-for-profit firms and
state and local governments—find it worthwhile to purse these external
goals, which deliver rewards above and beyond cost containment.

Although the two goals align to a great degree (conserving energy
cuts costs and reduces carbon footprint), they’re not identical.
Companies focused on cutting costs may find, for example, that
telecommuting is a lower priority than companies seeking to reduce
carbon emissions (since the commuting costs are borne by employees
rather than the company). The first step in devising and implementing a
successful green IT strategy is therefore to determine which of the two
goals is most important. Once that’s accomplished, IT executives can
move on to benchmarking current consumption, applying reduction
strategies, and measuring the effectiveness of each effort.

Companies mentioned in this issue paper include VMware, Citrix, IBM,
Avocent, Monsanto Company, Microsoft, APC, Liebert, Verdiem,
Hewlett-Packard,Sun Microsystems, Andover Computer Liquidators, Network
Hardware Resale and ComEd.

Clients - read this issue paper: Green IT: Saving Money, Saving the World-or Both?

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