My work as a Forrester analyst is focused on helping strategists at IT suppliers (vendors) align their development, positioning, and messaging with the big trends and disruptions in the industry. Mobility, cloud computing, globalization ... trends at that high altitude. Over the last three years or so, that has included sustainability as it has appeared on and risen higher the strategy agenda of companies around the world.

When I meet with strategists at tech suppliers large and small, we talk sustainability both in terms of how the companies are cleaning up their own practices and processes, and what they are doing to help their customers do the same. SAP's "exemplar and enabler" language captures these parallel efforts nicely. But it's still a limited perspective, one that I characterize as the IT industry playing defense.

"We are improving our energy efficiency!" says the collective industry voice, as if trying to deflect public criticism of energy-hog data centers, or mountains of e-waste, or PCs left running 7 x 24. And yes, absolutely, the IT industry and its customers have more work to do to make IT infrastructure and processes less wasteful and more responsible.

But what about going on the offensive? There are bigger opportunities out there for IT suppliers; new markets in sustainability that will require more, not less, IT infrastructure. Opportunities that will cause IT's share of global energy use to rise, not fall.

If big IT suppliers are in a defensive crouch regarding sustainability, they risk missing these new markets. That's why my visit to Intel last week was so encouraging. I spent some time with Lorie Wigel and her eco-team, longstanding advocates of greener IT (Lorie is also the President of Climate Savers Computing) now turning their attention -- and Intel's attention -- toward new market opportunities in across the green energy landscape.