When you think of leaders in green technology, it's likely that a railroad company won't be at the top of mind.

But in the latest list of top green IT organizations, published today by Computerworld, Union Pacific Railroad comes in at ninth place.

There are a number of perhaps more expected companies that made the list of 12 companies, governments and NGOs, including financial firms PricewaterhouseCoopers and Citigroup -- which placed first and second, respectively. But all of the top dozen were chosen for their successes in finding new ways to reduce the energy consumed by their IT operations, as well as using IT to reduce energy use throughout the entire organization.

From the article introducing the list:

Being a green-IT innovator isn't easy. Several of the organizations named to this year's list have helped lead the green-IT movement for years. They've plucked the low-hanging fruit of videoconferencing and printer management and are stretching toward more challenging projects, like the large-scale data center migration at Northrop Grumman, or the effort at Citigroup to relocate network switches to reduce the use of copper and cut power consumption by as much as 50%.

 

And even with these individual achievements, moving green-IT forward is a collective effort. George Washington University, for example, is putting out the challenge to other universities to take on green-IT initiatives. As the knowledge spreads, more organizations will join with these elite 12.

The report includes profiles of each group's IT efforts. Here's why Union Pacific made the list:

Since 2000, the Omaha-based company has spent about $6 billion on new, environmentally friendly locomotives. It has also retired more than 2,300 older, less fuel-efficient trains and overhauled almost 3,200 diesel engines to run cleaner and more efficiently. Recycling is encouraged at all locations, and energy efficiency was a critical consideration when the company built a new 19-story corporate headquarters facility.

 

But it is the building that houses Union Pacific's data center that has been a focal point of its most recent green efforts. The data center has allowed the railway to accommodate significant growth in servers and disk capacity. Since 2008, the company has increased its computing capacity by about 200% and its disk storage capacity by about 700%.

During the same period, however, power consumption in the center actually decreased by about 14%.

For PricewaterhouseCoopers, which in 2008 set a goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2012 -- and which, it should be noted, achieved those reductions two years early -- building a LEED-certified data center made a big difference in its efforts. Computerworld explains:

PwC's new data center in Georgia has made a significant contribution, reducing power consumption by 20 million kilowatt-hours and cutting operating costs by $2 million -- a 40% savings. The firm realized those savings by virtualizing 2,500 servers, using more-efficient equipment and moving to an optimized hot-aisle/cold-aisle design. PwC also distributes power at 575 volts AC instead of the industry standard 480 (which saved on copper and eliminated some uninterruptible power supply equipment).[...]

 

PwC has also seen a 30% decrease in travel since April, after it pledged during its "Green Week" to plant five trees for every videoconference scheduled. By August, it had committed to planting 4,200 saplings.

Below is the full ranking of top green IT organizations, as well as links to Computerworld's profiles of those groups:

1. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
2. Citigroup Inc.
3. State Street Corp.
4. Earth Rangers
5. State of Indiana
6. Allstate Insurance Co.
7. George Washington University
8. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
9. Union Pacific Railroad Co.
10. Baker Hughes Inc.
11. Northrop Grumman Corp.
12. Marriott International Inc.

Computerworld has also compiled of a list of the 12 top vendors for green IT equipment, with Fujitsu, Dell and NetApp ranking at the top of that list:

1. Fujitsu America Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.
2. Dell Inc. , Round Rock, Texas
3. NetApp Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif.
4. Verizon Wireless, Basking Ridge, N.J.
5. Intel Corp., Santa Clara, Calif.
6. Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif.
7. Qualcomm Inc., San Diego
8. Accenture PLC, New York
9. Terremark Worldwide Inc., Miami
10. Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.
11. Symantec Corp., Mountain View, Calif.
12. Affordable Internet Services Online Inc. (AISO), Romoland, Calif.

_{Photo CC-licensed by Mattsip.}