The Green IT Leaders of 2009

Green-technology projects flourished at organizations of all sizes in 2008, a trend that, at first blush, might seem counterintuitive. Here's a look at some winners in tough economic times.

By Ted Samson
Wed, April 22, 2009

InfoWorld — Green-technology projects flourished at organizations of all sizes in 2008, a trend that, at first blush, might seem counterintuitive. Given the economic hardships companies are facing, you might expect that projects seemingly tied to feel-good corporate social responsibility endeavors would take a backseat to initiatives aimed at bolstering the bottom line.

However, as this year's crop of Green 15 award winners demonstrates, the rewards of green-technology projects are far from limited to noble goals such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing landfill buildup, preserving trees, and the like. Rather, organizations leveraging green tech are realizing gains in efficiency, productivity, and cost savings. These business benefits are key drivers behind many green IT projects -- sometimes overriding good environmental intentions.

[ See last year's list of Green 15 winners. | Keep abreast of green IT news and tips by subscribing to InfoWorld's free weekly Green Tech newsletter. ]

That's no reason to discount the environmental merits of any of the projects that appear in the 2009 Green 15 winners' list or any of the other countless green-tech initiatives being pursued by companies across the globe. Whatever the rationale for a green IT project, one fact is clear. The outcome of a green-tech project is generally win-win: a healthier planet and a healthier bottom line.

This year's winners are, in alphabetical order:

Aramark cuts print waste with better devices, software
Burt's Bees undergoes green IT makeover
California Academy of Sciences reaps efficiencies through network convergence
California State University East Bay turns to green tech to fend off power crisis
Con-way Freight slashes annual fuel consumption by 4.9 million gallons
Digital Realty Trust sets new standard for green datacenter design
GlaxoSmithKline sheds nearly 6 tons of e-waste
HD Supply achieves ecodreams through array of green-tech initiatives
Intel finds significant savings by pushing the limits of free cooling
Niagara Catholic School District turns to e-docs to cut paper and transport costs
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory proves just how smart a smart grid can be
Procter & Gamble finds a green alternative to travel in telepresence
Raytheon reaps green success from sowing sustainability seeds
U.S. Navy enlists virtualization to supercharge sprawling intranet
U.S. Postal Service taps optimization software to slash transportation costs

Gains from green IT
The business gains organizations reap from sustainable IT vary from project to project. For example, winners such as the U.S. Navy and California State University East Bay reduced energy consumption and saved floor space through virtualization, consolidation, and adjustments to datacenter layout to reduce cooling needs. As a result, they managed to save on electricity and future hardware refreshes while making their networks more stable. All the while, they reduced their carbon footprints -- and even succeeded in postponing expensive, resource-intensive datacenter expansion projects.

1 2 next page »

You are here: Technology Topics » Data Center » News

Most Recent Data Center Stories

White Papers »

Delivering a Greener Data Center

This paper covers power utilization, intelligent power management and industry best practices for energy efficiency. Extreme Networks® takes a lifecycle approach to power efficiency, management and recycling, offering savings to our customers and promoting a greener world.

Enterprise Strategy Group: The Case for a New Data-centric DLP White Paper

With increasing data growth, comes increased need for data security. The existing DLP model, with a focus on compliance/enforcement is not sufficient as the data discovery and classification capabilities are not granular enough. Read this paper to find how you can efficiently and accurately manage your risk by rapidly inventorying and classifying your data and then developing remediation workflows that support business needs.

Data Loss by the Numbers

This paper breaks down attack sources into four categories: external, malicious insiders, accidental insiders, and unknown.

Data Loss Prevention Solution for Managing E-Discovery

The rapid growth of data and technology is creating challenges for organizations as this digital data is considered to be business communications and must be preserved according the same industry-specific regulations governing the retention and discovery of emails and more traditional forms of electronic communications. This paper examines the role that Data Loss Prevention ("DLP") technology can play in helping organizations address the challenges of locating information in response to electronic discovery.

Best Practices in Data Protection - Executive Summary

This research, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, focuses on issues relating to the use of data protection solutions such as endpoint encryption and data loss prevention within the workplace.

Business Centric DLP

This report, by Jon Oltsik from Enterprise Strategy Group, examines the need for a new business-centric approach to DLP in order to align business and security requirements.

Webcasts »

Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware

Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn about VMware customer, Navicure, and their experiences testing and evaluating the recovery manager, their progress in implementing it in their environment and their advice other customers considering using vCenter.

Virtualizing Microsoft and Oracle on VMware vSphere: Benefits and Best Practices

Virtualizing business-critical applications is an essential step in your journey to the cloud. Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange and SharePoint, and Oracle applications, are often the backbone of business IT. The benefits of virtualizing these applications extend far beyond mere consolidation. Understanding how VMware improves quality of service and agility while reducing costs will help you make the case for taking virtualization to the next level in your company.

Architecting a Modern Approach to Data Management

Applications are changing - they're increasingly web-oriented, global in nature and run from multiple device types. Additionally, the volume of data is growing exponentially every year. How do you ensure your applications have fast, accurate, up-to-date information in this new world? Modern applications are data-intensive; delivering data the old way using monolithic databases isn't working. What's needed is a modern approach to data. One that scales-out as needed and delivers predictable high performance, but without sacrificing data consistency or integrity.

Solving the Data Challenge for Real-Time Awareness and Risk Assessment: Webcast

Real-time, global data updates have become a critical business requirement for financial-services firms. Overnight or hourly batch jobs can cause erroneous results and missed opportunities. New regulatory requirements dictate real-time reporting of liquidity; traders want access to real-time market and risk positions; and the time windows for relevancy of cross-selling and marketing opportunities are getting shorter. To deal with these issues and new requirements, firms need to be able to react quickly to changes in data. Quick reactions require near-instant access to data, risk analysis and deeper computational analysis for effective decision making. View this webcast to learn how to achieve real-time awareness by managing ever-increasing data volumes and transaction rates.

Introduction to Virtualization

This video webcast is designed to help those with little to no virtualization experience understand why virtualization and VMware are so important to driving down both capital and operational costs. The session will start with the introduction of the key concepts and technologies of virtualization, introduce the vSphere Hypervisor, and build up to an overview of VMware vSphere® 5, the world's most robust and complete virtualization platform. This session will also discuss new solutions such as the vSphere Storage Appliance and VMware GO that are making it easier than ever before to get started with virtualization.

How Klout Combines Big Data with Microsoft Business Intelligence to Measure Influence

Big Data-it has the potential of transforming a business. In the case of Klout, a social networking analytics site, big data is the heart of the business. Klout processes and analyzes billions of user data signals every day-from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and more. How do they do it? Gain valuable insights from David Mariani, vice president of engineering for Klout.

Newsletter Sign-Up »

Receive the latest news test, reviews and trends on your favorite technology topics

Choose a newsletter