You've established a green IT strategy. Now what?

May 16, 2008

By Polly Schneider Traylor

So, you've worked with the business side of the house and created a blueprint for your organization's green IT strategy. You have a vision for the energy efficiencies you want to achieve, but how do you make it a reality?

Here are some general green IT rules of thumb and methods to help put your strategy into practice, along with a few resources to help you dig deeper.

1. Determine energy usage.

Before you do anything, determine your baseline: How much energy are your IT systems using? Analyze your application portfolio for duplication and inefficiencies, and then detail the energy consumption of all your hardware, recommends Jeff Wacker, fellow and futurist with EDS, based in Plano, Texas.

CIOs often don't have this utilization information handy, but they must get it and track it in order to determine top-priority needs. Don't forget to look at employee-generated waste, such as paper usage, too.

Jerry Lawson, national manager of the EPA's Energy Star program, recommends spending the money on a professional energy audit. Alternatively, software vendors, such as SAS, are now launching products to help companies do environmental assessments on their own.

2. Estimate where you can simplify.

Are you operating a lean IT environment? According to Jacques Davignon, CEO of Surf Technologies Inc., an IT consulting firm in Atlanta, a simpler infrastructure is usually a cheaper one because it costs less to manage.

He offers the example of a utility customer that was considering a 100 percent replication of its data center. "But that is twice the power, twice the space," Davignon says. Instead, after an assessment, the utility realized it didn't need duplicate copies of everything. It minimized the number of images to replicate, instituted data retention policies and then outsourced the replication.

3. Use common business sense.

Richard Hodges, a green IT consultant based in Sonoma, Calif., says "You can gain significant savings in energy, materials and in e-waste by going to a thin client versus desktop PCs. But if you just refreshed your entire PC fleet, that doesn't make sense."

Another example: By eliminating desktop printers and setting dual-sided printing to the default, an organization can gain measurable space and cost savings, and a 40 percent reduction in the use of paper, Hodges says. "But it might be hard for many people to lose that control of not having their own printer."

Hodges warns that the decisions aren't always clear-cut based on cost savings. A paperless system will save money on printing, paper costs and filing cabinets, but the savings may be offset by increased data storage costs. Also, in assessing your environment for virtualization technologies, CIOs should factor in any legal and regulatory issues that may block certain applications from going virtual, Wacker says.

4. Before you buy, run the numbers.

It's getting easier to purchase energy-efficient hardware, in some cases that use up to 60 percent less electricity. So, updating your infrastructure with these products when it's time to replace old equipment is really a no-brainer. Some organizations can even make the case for replacing equipment earlier, based on energy savings alone.

Before you buy, assess your options. Melissa Quinn, sustainability programs manager for SoftChoice, a Toronto-based business-to-business reseller of IT products, recommends purchasing servers that can handle higher storage loads and remove duplicate data.

Then, just as important, ask questions. Companies are including requests for evidence of sustainability practices in RFPs from suppliers, says Richard Hodges, a green IT consultant based in Sonoma, Calif., citing Wal-Mart as one example.

You can also run some numbers and do some investigative work on your own by going sites such as Energy Star (energystar.gov) to estimate the impact of switching to more energy-efficient products. Also check out epeat.net, a resource run by a nonprofit organization in conjunction with the Green Electronics Council. EPEAT helps you evaluate and compare IT hardware to see if it conforms and complies with environmental performance standards and criteria set by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

5. Measure your progress.

Companies need to figure out how to measure and monitor progress in green IT, even though the practices for doing so are still being established. Consortiums such as The Green Grid, the Carbon Trust (UK) and the World Wildlife Fund Climate Savers program are just three groups working on methods, standards, ratings, and benchmark and measurement tools for carbon reduction and green computing, according to Wacker.

Metrics will vary from organization to organization depending on your initial environmental audit, projects and goals, says Marsha Willard, CEO of AXIS Performance Advisors Inc., a sustainability management consulting firm based in Portland, Ore. Beyond quantifiable metrics such as energy utilization and recycling, Willard, who is also executive director of the International Society of Sustainability Professionals, recommends looking at HR factors: employee satisfaction and "quality of work life."

To monitor your ongoing energy use, download the free Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool. The software is maintained and updated by an Energy Star private sector contractor for accuracy, and your information is password-protected for privacy.

Sustainability is a major business movement that's gaining traction in the corporate workplace. The most important thing is to get started somehow on green computing - after all, for the foreseeable future, energy costs are only going up from here.