This entry is about a survey of IT executives conducted by Symantec Corp. in which respondents indicated that Green IT budgets are rising and they are willing to pay more up front for energy efficient solutions. Before I get into that topic, however, I want to invoke the blogger's prerogative to interject personal ramblings only peripherally related to the subject.
It's been about two years now since I got really, really tired of hearing people talk about "Green" as if it were not only the most important thing in human history, but that it actually meant one thing and everyone knew what that was. It's the name of a color for pity's sake! Spectroscopically speaking, it's pretty mundane, lying dead bang in the middle of the visible spectrum. Yellow is more visible to human eyes. Red is much more exciting. Blue is about the coolest color you can see.
Green with a capital "G," however, is a broad, marketing-speak-like term intended to encompass anything and everything "environmentally friendly" (whatever that means). If most such vague terms are referred to as "buckets," Green is a bathtub. No, it's a swimming pool. It's like what Texans refer to as a "tank," which is an artificial pond containing enough water to get a whole herd of cattle through the dry season. We're talking ambiguous to an astronomical degree here!
Clearly, an underpowered electric car with bad styling and no leg room has no excuse for existing except to be Green. But, does a natural-gas-fired electric power plant, which generates the power to charge that electric car's battery, qualify as Green? It's certainly Greener than a coal-fired generating station built in the 1950s and never updated, but not as Green as a photovoltaic solar array.
I'm just asking.
Anyway, admitting the word Green (through tightly clenched teeth) to the modern English lexicon as meaning looking for ways to get the same work done (energy being defined in the professional physics game as "the ability to do work") while littering the landscape with less noxious byproducts and using up less of any limited resources, it certainly points to a noble calling. It's right up there with motherhood and apple pie on the list of things that should be encouraged by any and all means available.
So, what's the debate?
The debate is that it's hard. Ultimately, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it's a losing battle. You reach the point of diminishing returns where ekeing out that next few percent of efficiency takes more time, effort, money, etc. than all the gains made since Neandertals noticed that they got more warmth by building fires inside the cave than outside.
The point of diminishing returns is, of course, a fallacy. There is no point of diminishing returns. Returns always diminish! It's that pesky Second Law of Thermodynamics, again. The only trigger point is where the cost of the energy saved relative to the cost of saving the energy becomes greater than unity. And, both costs are moving targets.
What has changed is that the realization that the cost of energy to be saved has gone up, while the cost of saving the energy has gone down due to application of some clever computerized measurement and control technology. Now, we can actually measure, in real time, the power bleeding off into the Great Outdoors with finer granularity than ever before. The control part of the technology simultaneously gives us more effective means of doing something about it.
So, now we have a circular mechanism where clarity of observation makes it possible to know, for the first time, exactly what's going on. The picture that's emerging gives business managers apoplectic fits. That motivates facilities engineers to employ shiny new technology (always popular among engineers of every stripe) to stop up the energy leaks.
Symantec Corp. undertook the effort to measure this phenomenon by surveying senior-level IT executives about their companies' interest in Green IT strategies and solutions. Most of us techno-geeks know Symantec as a purveyor of anti-malware software applications. A closer look reveals that it does a lot more. It is, after all, descended from the old Norton Utilities company that helped us out of stupidity-induced computer jams long before anybody figured out how to surreptitiously introduce code into other people's operating systems in order to induce mayhem on purpose. It provides all sorts of tools that operate in the background to help computer users get the most out of their applications.
Ninety-seven percent of respondents, according to the Symantec announcement, state they are at least discussing a Green IT strategy, while 45% have already implemented green IT initiatives. Respondents cited key drivers as reducing electricity consumption (90%), reducing cooling costs (87%), and corporate pressure to be "green" (86%). Furthermore, 83% of respondents are now responsible or cross-charged for the electricity consumed in the data center, which brings visibility and accountability for one of IT's biggest costs to the enterprise. The typical respondent reported spending up to $27 million on data center electricity.
IT professionals are regularly deploying several key initiatives for green IT purposes. Replacing old equipment was the most popular strategy, with 95% reporting new energy efficient equipment as part of their strategy, followed by equipment for monitoring power consumption (94%), server virtualization (94%), and server consolidation (93%). Additionally, more than half (57%) of respondents see software-as-a-service offerings as Green solutions.
Significantly, respondents report a willingness to pay a premium for energy efficient products. Two-thirds of respondents said they would pay at least 10% more, while 41% are willing to pay at least 20% more. Additionally, 89% of respondents said product efficiency is either important or very important in their purchase decisions.
Company managements are supporting this practice with a significant increase in Green IT budgets. Some 73% of respondents expect some increase in Green IT budgets over the next 12 months, with 19% expecting increases of more than 10%.
It has been clear for at least a couple of years that reducing energy costs is good business. Years of political efforts to motivate Green behavior through education, moral arguments, and yammering about climate change have done practically nothing. Simple cost-benefit analysis of funds flowing through individual businesses, however, has made a huge difference.
