Despite the obvious business benefits of energy efficiency (starting with the electric bill), IT managers still struggle to move from awareness to green action. Here's how you can overcome some common hurdles. By Doug Washburn

While green IT offers tangible environmental and financial benefits, recent research suggests that IT managers still struggle to move from awareness to action. Why? Culture, costs, prioritization, and budget ownership can all become barriers to green IT adoption. While these are legitimate concerns, here are several recommendations to overcome some common hurdles:

Culture. If your business doesn’t care about being green, sell them on the other “green” – cost savings. Much of this comes down to marketing and communications which can be foreign to some IT managers. Words are powerful, so consider calling green IT something other than “green” – such as efficient IT, energy efficient IT, or lean IT. And focus your conversations on the economic benefits — such as cost savings or cost avoidance — since you know it will resonate with the business.

Costs. While some IT managers consider cost to be a barrier to green IT, greening your IT can be free. In fact, there is a number of low-hanging fruit that IT managers can grab. For example, General Electric saves $2.5 million per year simply activating the power management settings already available in Windows. Likewise, Citigroup finds that if each employee “uses double-sided copying to conserve just one sheet of paper each week, the firm can save an estimated $700,000 each year plus eliminate 76 tons of solid waste.” Once again, a feature that is standard on most copiers and printers that just needs to be enabled.

Prioritization. If you’re struggling to determine what to green first (e.g. PCs, servers, storage), measure your green IT baseline – an annual estimate of the energy consumption, carbon emissions and financial costs of operating IT. Not only will this data offer a practical green IT starting point by exposing your most eco-taxing assets, but without it you cannot accurately quantify and report the benefits of your greening efforts to senior management.

Budget ownership. If someone else owns the energy budget (e.g. facilities) – but you believe green IT can positively impact the bottom line – talk to the business. Refer to the hard data from measuring your Green IT baseline and explain that the firm will save ___ (fill in the blank) dollars per year and also reduce annual CO2 emissions by ___ (fill in the blank) pounds. Even if the financial benefits of your greening effort accrue to the facilities group, the company overall is profiting and aligning IT operations with the business.

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Doug Washburn is analyst at Forrester Research, where he advises clients on sustainable business and green IT practices and the role of technology in business. He also hosts SLM's Greener IT Update e-newsletter.