I think it is a bad idea for CIOs to be natural selections for CGOs. Technology is not God. Technology will only help improve the environment, it will not save it. To truly be sustainable and environmental, a new mind set has to be developed. If you are looking at the social dimension of the business, then the Director of HR would be responsible for promoting green attitudes in employees. The technology director could help reduce the energy use of the servers, data centers, etc. The lawyers could study the laws that need to be followed. If we keep extending this logic, the CGO would have to know everything about the company and how it operates. The CGO would have to understand the market, the stakeholders, the customers, etc, not only technology. Some of the most anti-human and anti-environment individuals I have met are those that believe in technology as God and believe that it will save everything.

CGO should be the CEO. CEO is chief visioning officer and Sustainability, as Al Gore, Schwarzenegger, and Obama have shown, it takes someone with a vision.

Love your predictions.

Green IT can make significant strides in the near future--as long as there is a strong cost/benefit savings. As the economy continues to cool, companies (and governments and NGO's) will only be willing to throw money at Green IT if a significant cost savings can be made.

If businesses can make the case that in addition to being green, their technology can also save money--it will be a smooth upward arrow for Green IT in the coming years.
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Robert Piller is President of EcoMarketingSolutions.com, which helps companies promote their brand and image at trade shows and in direct mail with environmentally-friendly imprinted promotional products that won't end up in landfills. He is a frequent guest speaker and writer on green marketing issues and welcomes feedback to postings on his blog: GreenSpotBlog.com.

While the GREEN IT predictions are valid and the energy savings important, I agree that the visionary leaders that look beyond the IT costs and benefits should address the issue of Sustainable Buildings. Let's finally remove the silos in organizations and get the interoperability between the various information technology systems used by all the occupants and operators and the building automation systems that control and could optimize the energy and reduce the carbon footprint.

See the recent Frost and Sullivan report on BRIGHT buildings prepared for CABA at www.caba.org

GREEN IT proponents are welcome to get information on the FREE DEMO of the CABA Building Intelligence Quotient Rating program by contacting David Katz, Program Manager at dkatz@building-iq.com

While I broadly agree with your predictions, our recent research (Green IT: Realuty, Benefits and Best Practices - http://www.itgovernance.co.uk/products/1933) is clear that the bottom line benefits - the ones that come from reduced power and utility costs, reductions in data centre costs, reductions in paper and other office costs - are the key areas of interest to board directors in 2009. I'm not personally convinced that we will see a huge 'greening' of the enterprise (but agree that, for those organisations that have this as part of their vision, then the CEO really should be leading the effort); I do think that the HR, IT and Finance Chiefs are all going to have to build Green IT into their strategies for this year.

Its time for the work culture to change and get the workforce working from home then these buildings are a non issue.

Given we're in a recession, probably heading for depression, the big theme next year will be IT workers scared about losing their jobs.

I really don't think green IT will "take off" next year, nor will 100,000's of jobs be created.

A more realistic scenario is there will be very little extra hiring next year. Obama's bailout will certainly stimulate some new spending that may add extra IT jobs - however that will be offset by layoffs due to the downturn.

Bank of America is planning to lay off 30,000 workers for instance. How many of those people will likely be IT or IT related people? (Answer: lots)

In times of depression, I doubt CEO's or CIO's will be willing to invest money in green IT. They will be worried about reducing costs, recouping equipment taken from layed off workers - and most importantly be worried about their own jobs.