Has your organization adopted a formal green IT program? If not, you may be missing out on some significant cost savings. 

The majority of organizations that have started programs to increase energy efficiency in their data centers have successfully cut costs, according to the recently published CDW Energy Efficient IT Report.

Thanks to a greater amount of green IT choices from vendors and a growing emphasis on energy efficiency, today 32% of all data center purchasing involves green technology – meaning the products and services purchased are energy efficient, non-ozone depleting, or otherwise environmentally preferable.

More than half (54%) of organizations currently have or are developing a plan to manage power and energy consumption in their data centers. And of those that have such a program in place, 75% have been successful in reducing energy costs in the data center.

Some more good news: Not only are green IT programs effective at cutting energy consumption and costs, but those initiatives were easier to implement than companies planned, according to the survey.

For organizations without green IT programs, what’s stopping them? Despite the potential for cost savings, many businesses still struggle to get funding for new, energy-efficient technology. Among the organizations surveyed, 56% said they don’t have room in the budget for new systems.

What are the best ways for businesses to save money using green IT? These were the steps that paid off the most for the organizations in CDW’s study:

1. Virtualizing servers and/or storage (average energy savings of 28%)
2. Using new approaches to data center cooling (22%)
3. Employing an energy-efficient uninterruptible power supply (21%)
4. Purchasing ENERGY STAR qualifying devices (20%)
5. Consolidating servers (20%)
6. Increasing use of hosted services (17%)
7. Using hardware with lower-power processors (17%), and
8. Installing more power-efficient networking equipment (14%).

The first step to developing a green IT plan: Measure the organization’s current power consumption. The organization should know how much money can be saved, and where going green will pay off the most.

Tags: data center, Energy Star rating system, green IT, virtualization