The past 12 months have seen a host of leading firms take on the challenge of environmentalism.

Businesses such as E.On, Britannia and BBC Worldwide are among the companies that have carried out year-long workplace programmes that help staff measure and improve their firm’s green credentials, in terms of waste, energy, water and transport.

The initiatives are likely to tap into the broader corporate social responsibility agenda of an organisation.
In some cases, the projects are seen as helping to drive important standards, including ISO 14001 or BS 8555 Environmental Management Systems accreditation.

In other cases, the plans help drive sustainability charters and the relationships being developed with
organisations such as the Carbon Trust.

The approaches are invariably driven by the wider organisation, and typically the board, finance, human resources and compliance functions set overall policy.

But a consequence of the top-down approach is that few IT departments have their own specific green computing policy.

Just 28 per cent of technology leaders have a formal policy to ensure that IT systems become more environmentally friendly, according to a recent CIO Connect poll.

However, the research also found that a third of chief information officers (CIOs) are sufficiently concerned about green IT that they are starting to explore the use of energy and heat efficient servers in the datacentre.

Although organisations recognise the reputational value of being seen to be environmentally friendly, it is cost savings that should be adopted as a true driver for green IT activity.

The size of the corporate energy bill and the amount of power that can be saved with IT-led initiatives are measurable benefits.

IT-led policies covering recycling, on-demand resource use, duplex print management, thin client adoption, auto power-off of standby PCs, replacing CRT monitors with TFT screens, and server virtualisation are likely to lead to quantifiable energy savings.

So far these activities have been implemented without too much trouble, largely because their effect on users is moderate. However, planned activities such as the greening of the corporate datacentre will force the organisation to understand that some financial investment must be made to deliver longer-term, environmentally-friendly benefits.

HSBC is one company prepared to invest in a green future, having publicly stated its intention to
become the world’s first carbon-neutral bank.

One of the main ways the group is working to reduce its carbon footprint is through the use of technology to reduce unnecessary travel.

But HSBC is also looking at new ways of constructing datacentres in Mexico, Hong Kong, the UK and the US that will be much leaner, energy-efficient power houses for its global business.

Following on from such trailblazing activity, 2008 will be the year that every CIO makes green computing best practice a matter of course.

Nick Kirkland is managing director of CIO Connect, a leading forum for chief information officers and chief executives.