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The Greening of IT
xxvi How Companies Can Make a Difference for the Environment

by 50 percent. However, virtual server and virtual data storage technol-
ogy are methods to enable you to significantly reduce equipment and
system management costs for your data center. So, data center green
technology is based around a solid business case without even consider-
ing the savings due to a reduction in energy costs. Of all the green proj-
ects out there, green IT is truly a “win-win” direction for all companies
to pursue.
Finally, although the main intent of this book is to examine the busi-
ness benefits of going to green IT, we should not lose sight that green
projects are also socially responsible. Of course, going green also gives a
corporation a potential financial benefit. The recent book Green to Gold:
How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value,
and Build Competitive Advantage by Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S.
Winston shows how companies benefit financially by emphasizing
environmental responsibility and following the “green wave” (to use
the author’s term). In 2009, with Steven Chu as U.S. Secretary of
Energy, going green will get another significant boost. Secretary Chu
was director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a strong
ptg
supporter of alternative energy development, along with a strong belief
in encouraging energy efficiency and conservation for all our current
infrastructure.

How to Use This Book

This book is organized largely around the two basic reader groups for
a book of this type: 1) CEOs, CIOs, VPs of IT, sales and marketing peo-
ple and 2) system architects, IT architects, engineers, and other techni-
cal groups. If you’re more involved in the business aspects of your
company, you might be most interested in the early chapters on “what to
do” in the area of green IT. The following bullets give an overview
of how this book is organized and will help serve as a guide for your
reading.

■ Chapters 1 through 5 give a background on green IT and should be of
interest to all readers. These chapters give information on the green IT
challenge and the importance of collaboration across a wide array of tech-
nical and regulatory groups.