Green IT tactics save energy, cut operating costs

August 3, 2009, 01:05 PM —  Symantec Corporation — 

In today’s business world, green IT is no longer an abstract or fringe topic. Executives are looking into greener IT because energy costs are such a large operating expense for IT. By using more energy-efficient IT and business processes, organizations can reduce operating costs. Furthermore, there’s evidence that motivation extends beyond simple cost and energy savings and now include the desire to implement environmentally responsible practices. In Symantec’s recent Green IT report, 89 percent of respondents indicate IT should play a very or extremely significant ‘green role’, while 94 percent report that their organization has a ‘green’ advocate, most of which have an IT focus.

To make IT greener, organizations need to evaluate the environmental impacts and business processes and technology used for creating, producing, selling, and using goods and services. IT pervades most of those processes and has become a large consumer of energy. The amount of energy consumed by servers and data centers alone receives significant publicity. In global terms, total carbon emissions by all data centers in the world eclipse emission totals from many countries. On average, experts say a third to half of this energy is wasted by underutilized servers and storage devices, among other culprits.

Implementing greener IT tactics such as consolidating or decommissioning underused devices and/or applications can provide immediate reductions in energy consumption and costs. They are practical ways for your organization to contain costs and improve operating efficiency while reducing carbon emissions.

Comply With Regulations
Requirements for compliance with greener business practices vary around the world. Some nations have published guidelines to help self-regulate demand for energy, such as Greening Government ICT in the United Kingdom or EPA Data Center recommendations, LEED building guidelines, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s ENERGY STAR program. The latter now includes guidelines for servers. Another area of change is the emergence of regional carbon emission trading organizations; these are based on government- or quasi-government-driven limits or caps on pollutants that organizations are allowed to emit.

Enhance Organization’s Reputation
The responsibilities of corporations to be good stewards of corporate funds and manage the organization toward green objectives are increasingly aligned with social responsibility. Symantec’s Green IT report provided proof of this shift – 86 percent of respondents indicated that corporate wants IT to be ‘green’. Proving corporate social responsibility by reducing carbon emissions can help improve an organization’s image, build brand equity, and reinforce confidence with corporate shareholders and stakeholders. Every organization is becoming accountable—and not just for the impact of business operations on the environment.

Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world

I like it!
Close

On Twitter now

energy

Powered by Twitter
You are logged in | Sign out
Sign in and post to Twitter

What are you thinking?

Cancel Tweet sent

On Twitter now

Post a comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
peer-to-peer

Esther Schindler
If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly

claird
SVG a graphics format for 21st century

pasmith
Take Chrome OS for a test spin

Sandra Henry-Stocker
Solaris Tip: Have Your Files Changed Since Installation?

sjvn
64-bits of protection?

jfruh
Android fragments vs. the iPhone monolith

mikelgan
What Gizmodo missed about the Pro WX Wireless USB disk drive

 

Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325

Join the conversation here

The Daily Tip

The Daily TipQuick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.

Hot tips:

Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.

Newsletters

Subscribe to ITWORLD TODAY and receive the latest IT news and analysis.

I would like to receive offers via email from ITworld partners.
By clicking submit you agree to the terms and conditions outlined in ITworld's privacy policy.
Featured Sponsor

AISO founders envisioned a Web hosting company that was environmentally friendly. While the company employed energy-efficient innovations like solar panels, its infrastructure produced unacceptable power and cooling requirements. Find out how AISO leveraged AMD technology to overcome their challenge in this case study white paper.

In this whitepaper, Scalar explores the opportunity to change the landscape with respect to mission critical databases built around Oracle. Leveraging technologies such as Linux, high-end commodity processing power and Oracle RAC technology to architect, design, build and maintain database infrastructure that delivers maximum availability, reliability and performance at a fraction of traditional cost.

On a typical day, weather.com, the Web site for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, serves up between 15 million and 20 million page views. But in September 2004, when back-to-back hurricanes ransacked Florida, the peak traffic on one day more than tripled: over 70 million page views by more than 7 million unique visitors. Read the full success story now.

Marketplace