An effective green initiative starts with the recognition that attitudes must change in order to impact behavior. Specifically, while there are many considerations, the following three points are noteworthy for IT:
- Understand that energy is not someone else’s problem. Communicate this throughout the entire organization, get out ahead of the momentum and lead the charge.
- Integrate facilities and IT or at least set up processes to formally share best practices across these two typically disparate organizations.
- Get rid of notions that suggest liquid cooling is somehow archaic and outdated. Air remains an inferior coolant, and U.S. companies are behind international counterparts at adopting liquid cooling.
Taking a holistic approach to the problem is good business. For example, IBM, based on customer studies, estimates that for every $1 spent on reducing energy consumption, $6-$8 is returned to the organization in terms of labor savings, reduced software costs, improved utilization, reduced floor space consumption and overall more efficient IT. Fundamental to this approach is putting in place effective monitoring and measurement capabilities that can identify the problem and perhaps more importantly, assign costs and ultimately affect ongoing improvements.
Action Item: IT organizations have an opportunity to participate actively in energy reduction strategies and must act urgently to quantify the problem, change perceptions and benchmark progress. Embracing this reality will allow organizations to preserve service levels, streamline infrastructure and demonstrate ongoing bottom line financial impact.
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