The clamor for green IT raised by the spiralling cost of energy, corporate social responsibility mandates and regulations around power consumption and electronic waste disposal is beginning to have an impact on IT infrastructures in ways that aren't just confined to the data center.

Squeezed between a woodworking unit and a grimy garage is a tiny billboard workshop in Bangalore that says: 'We Use Eco-Freindly [sic] Plastics'. Set in its surroundings, it's a somewhat incongruous place to find a green advertisement -- given that until recently 'eco-friendly' was a concept aimed at a more elitist market. If green has found a home in a hole-in-the-wall, it's a testament to the way it's being marketed.

Green IT is about retooling business processes and the ICT environment to reduce energy consumption and the organisation's carbon footprint. Happily, this coincides with increasing pressure to improve operational efficiencies and reduce processing costs. Thus, an improvement at the bottom line can also enhance a company's green credentials - a development that is becoming both a legislative requirement and a competitive differentiator.

Operating in a low-carbon economy is not going to be about doing the same things using less energy - it's going to be about doing things differently and doing different things. IT already contributes substantially to the energy efficiency of organisations, but it could do more. The big opportunity for IT organisations is to improve the environmental performance of the enterprise, its supply chain and its products and services in order to monitor and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Thinking about reducing your company's environmental impact can seem like a daunting task. So don't. Instead, here are three simple things IT departments can do today to start saving energy costs

As a matter of personal belief, CIOs are free to count themselves among the diminishing band of troglodytes that continue to deny the reality of human-induced climate change.

When it comes to cleaning up their act, many CIOs are recognizing data centres as among the lowest hanging fruit. IDC estimates companies spent $US26.1 billion to power and cool servers worldwide in 2005, with a monstrous $14 billion of that being spent in the US alone. In fact, data centres account for between 1.5 and 3 percent of all electricity consumed in the US. Should current trends persist, the research organization projects, that bill will soar to $US50 billion by the end of the decade

Nearly all British businesses think that companies should be doing more to reduce their carbon footprints but most of them haven't a clue how to go about it.

There's a lot of focus today on the greening of the data centre. But the energy conservation movement and the proliferation of IP-based data transport are also causing IT to pay more attention to building and facilities management, an area that has traditionally been outside its purview.

Google said it wants to do its part to control climate change and has decided to become carbon-neutral by the end of the year.

Google, Intel and the other backers of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative are to be commended for their efforts to address an issue that is on the minds of corporate buyers but not well understood.