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When those in a recent IDC survey consider green IT, 68 percent of them think of energy efficiency first, according to IDC. Despite the fact that 51 percent said their organization pursues green initiatives because of the potential cost savings, nearly 80 percent admit they have no set budget in place for green IT or sustainability initiatives.
Luckily, some green IT tools and techniques require little upfront investment or have fast payback periods, which recent research suggests is vital to any major capital investment. For example, installing or activating power management controls in personal computers can yield $40 in annual savings per unit, which represents a prime savings opportunity.
“In difficult economic times, business are faced with rising energy costs and forced to squeeze the most amount of compute power out of valuable data center real estate in the most efficient manner possible,” Vernon Turner, IDC’s senior vice president of Enterprise Infrastructure, said in a statement.
The survey, conducted at IDC’s Green IT Forum, also found that 85 percent believe green IT will play a medium to large role in reducing corporate environmental impacts. Several studies have found that various IT technologies, such as teleconferencing or telecommuting have the ability reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically if widely deployed.
Nearly two-thirds of those in the IDC survey have some sort of IT hardware recycling program in place. When retiring IT assets, it is security, however, tops their list of concerns.
"Data center" -- CC licensed by Flickr user habi.
Save money with used or refurbished equipment
The economic downturn has had an effect on all of us in some way or another. Many businesses have chosen to purchase used or refurbished IT equipment from companies that specialize in asset remarketing. This is a great way for cost conscious companies to cut IT spending and reduce their environmental impact.
Remote Offices make telecommuting a reality for more workers
Many workers would telecommute if they were given a real office to work from, professional grade internet and phone system. They would also like to have some social contact during the day when they need to take a break.
These are all possible when workers telecommute from a remote office. Remote Office Centers lease individual offices, internet and phone systems to workers from different companies in shared centers located around the city and suburbs.
Telecommuting is a great way to save on CO2 emissions and fuel consumption. The key is to get more people to embrace telecommuting. Remote Office provide the same infrastructure and structure that office workers are used to.
ROCs are fairly new, but can be found in many cities by searching the internet for "Remote Office Centers".