Top 8 ways feds (and corporate users) can take advantage of green IT

GAO report outlines key federal green IT initiatives
How does the federal government go about implementing green IT? According to a report out today from the Government Accountability Office, the feds have adopted a number of practices that are useful not just for government IT but all manner of private and public company IT groups as well. These include everything from dedicated funding for green products, to improved employee training and reducing use of paper.

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BACKGROUND: 25 tech touchstones of the past 25 years

From the GAO report, here's a green IT roadmap:

1. Utilize new IT tools, such as thin client technology. An alternative to the use of desktops that is gaining attention is the use of thin client technology. The Department of State, by the end of fiscal year 2010, replaced 8,187 standard desktop computers with thin clients, providing annual reported energy savings of 630,399 kilowatt hours and emission savings of 422.7 tons of carbon dioxide, an environmental impact equivalent to planting 1,900 trees or powering 71 households year round.

2. Implement print management actions beyond duplex printing. Using responses obtained from its 2009 survey of federal employees, an IT provider estimated that the federal government spends about $1.3 billion annually on employee printing, and about one-third of that total, or about $440.4 million per year, is spent on unnecessary printing. The survey indicated that 89% of federal employees report that their agencies do not have formal printing policies in place -- for example, according to federal employees, just 20% of agencies have restrictions on color printing; only 11% of agencies have policies dictating when to print or not to print; and only 5% of agencies require personal password codes to print. In the non-federal sector, Hewlett-Packard implemented managed print services that reportedly allowed a customer to reduce the number of printers by 47% globally, cut per-page print costs by up to 90% and save more than $3 million in two years in the United States alone. In addition, California implemented the Go-Online program as an alternative to mainframe printing, reportedly reducing the number of pages printed by 54 million and reducing costs by $700,000 annually.

3. Consolidate and standardize IT equipment and services. In an earlier 2011 report, the GAO found because procurement at federal departments and agencies is decentralized, the federal government is not fully leveraging its aggregate buying power to obtain the most advantageous terms and conditions for its procurements. The report also stated that applying strategic sourcing best practices throughout the federal procurement system could produce significant savings. Similarly, according to a 2010 report by a private-sector IT council, the federal government's costs of operating IT systems are higher than they need to be, in some cases by more than a factor of two. The report estimated that at least 20% to 30% of the more than $70 billion spent annually on IT assets could be eliminated by reducing overhead, consolidating data centers, eliminating redundant networks and standardizing applications. Therefore, the report recommended that the federal government consolidate IT infrastructure. In the non-federal sector, the IT council report indicated that IBM had cut its overall IT expenses in half over the past five years through consolidation and standardization. In addition, the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) identified consolidation/optimization, through centralizing or consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure and data centers, as its No. 1 priority for 2011.