Green IT Initiatives: The Investment ValueGreen IT Initiatives: The Investment Value

Going green will save money and can make the annual report look good to the shareholders/owners and their local community.

It is one thing to talk green, another to accomplish green in IT. Now that telephony is based on IT technologies, telecom personnel should look for green initiatives that IT implements, and embrace the same initiatives.Most green IT initiatives have been discussed within the large enterprises. The mid-size enterprise is catching up and adopting green initiatives as well. IBM commissioned Info Tech Research to survey mid-size enterprises about their green investments, and Info Tech produced a report, "Green IT: Why Mid-Sized Companies Are Investing Now." About 65% of the organizations have successfully implemented one or more of the major benefits studied.

More than 1,000 IT professionals in mid-size businesses, from 12 countries and eight industries, were consulted through surveys and interviews, to understand why Green IT initiatives are undertaken. One third of the organizations had less than 250 employees, one third had 250 to 500 employees and one third had 500 to 100 employees. The 18 page report covers a wide range of issues. I will focus on those issues that result in hard dollar savings as well as the personality of the individual who is the smart spender on green technologies.

Let's start with the reports definition of green IT:

Over 80%of the organizations are planning or have adopted Green IT initiatives. The study covered 11 areas of adoption. Here are three areas that I found of interest:

The energy measurement is definitely a step in the right direction. I find that many smaller data centers have NO power measurement at all. This eliminates the incentive to implement energy conservation because no one in IT knows the power bill. The PC Power Management could also save energy cost for the PC acting as a softphone. See my two blogs, "That Softphone is an Energy Hog" and "Reducing the Softphone Energy Bill."

The drivers for IT energy measurement are:

1. 54% of the respondents must reduce energy consumption to meet budget cuts. 2. 46% face limitations to their electricity supply. 3. 43% want to avoid penalties because of legal requirements.

Here is what these organizations' measurements projects delivered:

1. 68% used the energy data to influence technology procurements, management and usage in the future. 2. 63% are now able to track their electricity usage. 3. 59% have decreased energy costs.

Three recommendations were made in the report dealing with PC power management:

* Use software that centrally manages energy settings of PCs and [especially] monitors.

* Enforce standardized power settings on all PCs BEFORE distributing to the end users.

* Procure energy efficient Energy Star certified equipment.

The report described six benefits. Here are the two benefits that I focused on:

The report described four types of individual's attitudes and intents: * 7% were green seekers * 30% were green observers * 25% were green advocates * 38% were smart spenders

The characteristics of the green spender are:

Attitudes and Intents: Controls costs carefully. Less focused on the environmental impacts

Action in IT:

* Optimizes energy use * Actively manages PC power settings * Spends money upfront for long term cost reduction policies in IT: * Mandates the purchase of energy saving equipment * Establishes energy measurement

The three success factors for the green IT projects involved stakeholder support, lack of implementation barriers and economic tradeoffs. Going green will save money and can make the annual report look good to the shareholders/owners and their local community.Going green will save money and can make the annual report look good to the shareholders/owners and their local community.