This week we've got several stories highlighting just how far and wide green IT innovation and adoption have spread.

Cisco this morning is unveiling a slew of hardware and software products, but perhaps none is going to have as big an impact as its EnergyWise Orchestrator, an energy management platform for Cisco switches.

While it might not sound like a huge story, the company is making the platform -- which allows the IT department to manage the energy used not just by servers and routers but also PCs and, eventually, non-IT electronics like card readers and lighting systmes -- free to download as a simple software upgrade to customers who've bought Cisco switches in the past five years.

Talk about making green IT an easy sell.

Senior Writer Marc Gunther also talks to Microsoft's Rob Bernard about how the company is expanding into the realm of "green IT 2.0" -- that is, beyond energy efficiency of PCs and data centers and into homes, cars and people's everyday lives.

Bernard digs into Microsoft's Hohm energy management software, the green benefits of Bing's real-time traffic monitoring, and Eye on Earth, an air- and water-quality monitoring technology that's currently available to European users.

From the data center to the city center, green IT is making inroads, and we've got all the bases covered.

This guide from Info-Tech lays out how your firm can develop a complete end-to-end strategy that incorporates cost-effective and environmental best practices throughout the lifecycle of all IT assets.

This report from the U.N. Environment Programme looks at the growth of e-waste generated by and sent to developing nations, and suggests ways to reduce the health and environmental impacts from discarded electronics.

Learn how businesses are successfully addressing concerns regarding environmental sustainability and carbon footprinting within their operations, and even more critically, in their markets.