Going Green is a pet technology/solution for both vendors and CIOs. While environmentalists have been propagating various methods to reduce our burden on Mother Earth, few captains of industry took the
challenge as it would have meant cash going out of the company. The initiative to save Mother Earth has never been so vocal by the captains of industry and the CIO is doing his bit.

The entire green initiative started with the premise that equipment should function with lesser power. As chipset level manufacturing technology got smarter, vendors started using low power consuming products as the main peg of their go to market strategy.
This does not mean that tree hugging does not have its benefits.

In a recently released study by Symantec titled State of the Data Center Report (2008), in addition to data center specific issues, one finding reported is the fact that while respondents are pursuing green initiatives, they are doing so fundamentally based on the cost benefits that it has to offer.
The power bill of any company, whether it be offices, factories or data centers is a sizeable expense that needs to be paid every month. Reducing it by even a single digit percentage would mean adding to the bottom line of the company.

The CIO needs to look at this downturn to firmly put himself in the eyes of all, as one who is helping reduce expenses through the judicial use of technology, products and services. This could even be directly measured by him to the RoI that his suggestions would deliver.
The pessimism of the global economic canvas needs to be factored in and the road ahead to grow needs to be charted. Growth, albeit a little one, will determine the existence of an enterprise.

Finally, the environmentalist has got the attention of all by touching on a raw nerve, namely the bottom line.