"We had to go to the CFO to get the project and funding approved," he said. "We were spending [US]$8 million per year in electricity just to keep computers going. But the buy-in had to be from grass roots, the school sites. Their cooperation made it happen. Kids don't care about saving money but they do care about green initiatives."

Dunn said that cooperation will help the school district establish custom scheduling per site to try to save even more money from energy efficiency.

Johnson said green IT initiatives have to start like that—with corporatewide policies or mandates to consolidate IT assets, encourage telecommuting and virtual work, establish sustainable supply chains, and recycling.

Half the total carbon footprint for KPMG's back-office campus is from electricity, and half of that goes to power the data center, says the firm's CIO, Rowan Snyder. "I'm not a tree hugger, but it's a significant issue," said Snyder, who spoke on a panel about the status of IT in corporations.

If IT projects don't actually save money, they'd better help generate some, says Joanna Young, CIO of insurance company Liberty Mutual, who spoke on the same panel. "There are no IT projects anymore, there are business projects. The question we always ask is, 'What is the smallest IT investment we need to make to have this [business result] happen for you?'"

As Wall Street sagged, she clung to the hope that her company in particular might be spared some of the stock-trading volatility. "We are not a public company, which might be good today," she said.

© 2007 Network World Inc.