Green IT

Big green HP scheme

With polar bears balancing on ice cubes in the Arctic Circle and gas prices skyrocketing, we are all looking to be a bit more ‘green’ in our everyday lifestyle choices. Right? Well, we’re trying.

Technology solutions provider Hewlett-Packard (HP) has an environment link from its homepage that takes eco-conscious customers to its “HP Eco Solutions” page. Loaded with tips and solutions for consumers, it also advertises the company’s commitment to recycling, CO2 emission reductions and a timeline showcasing its environment history since 1987. You go, HP!

This morning, while scanning technology news across the globe (I take my blog very seriously), I came across something a bit disturbing. UK-based site The Register posted a story about (just my luck!) HP. The headline read “HP shatters excessive packaging world record,” and the pictures showed incredible amounts of packaging (including a huge shipping box, 16 smaller boxes and sheets of foam). What requires so much protection when being shipped? No, not a brand-new computer. Not even a mouse or keyboard. HP had copious amounts of packaging for … drumroll please … 32 pieces of paper.

Yep.

OK, so maybe Kermit had it right and it’s not easy being green. Apparently, it’s not easy being a green Apple, either. Apple received the lowest score in last year’s Climate Counts survey, examining companies based on how environmentally friendly they were. What may look good on 100% recycled paper is not always easily executed. But come on! Don’t even bother with the recycling timeline (did I mention it dates back to 1987?) if you aren’t going to start small. Cut down on a few sheets of your foam packaging material in every shipment. Hey, go crazy and take out an extra box or two.

I am not doubting HP’s decision to be a more eco-friendly corporation, and I’m sure the environment is very important to some people at HP. I mean, they’re serious enough to create a timeline of recycling. But could it be possible a lot of these decisions to ‘go green’ are less about saving the environment and more about riding the eco-friendly bandwagon to the bank? Green is the color of money, after all. And during a time when it seems so many people are focused on saving money and the polar bears, are consumers more apt to make a purchase if it is deemed ‘green?’ Even if that means your reduced-emissions, hybrid, organic, made-of-100%-recycled-material, all-proceeds-benefit [insert eco fund of your choice here], signed-off-by-Al Gore anything is sent to you in 16 cardboard boxes and enough plastic packaging to make yourself a tent in the backyard (well, you can’t live in your central air apartment after all that — you are trying to be good and green).

With the country in an economic downturn, are people spending their hard-earned dollars on products advertised as ‘green?’

By the way, I’m Kristen. I’m new to the blog.

If you only knew the power of the dark (green) side…

Disaster? Destruction? Trailer park slums in Alabama? The flooding of a major U.S. city? While the rebuilding effort of New Orleans continues, the city’s Chief Technology Officer, Anthony Jones, is making it easier for the residents of the city to apply for and receive grants.

According to a recent press release: “Following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the City of New Orleans was able to streamline business processes for grant applications and contract management from 45 days to 10 days and 90 days to 10 days, respectively.”

Using business process management (BPM) — and with a small staff, some of which fled the city — Jones changed the way IT services are delivered in New Orleans after the disaster.

Want to catch a presentation of BPM and hear Jones’ account of post-Katrina New Orleans? Happen to live in the Colorado Springs area? Or maybe, like us intrepid reporters at CIO Symmetry, you own a Lear jet and feel like a jaunt to the mountains? Check out the  CIMA Spring Conference April 16-18.

Reflecting on Katrina has me thinking about other trends and issues that have been bubbling around the minds of midmarket CIOs and in the IT world for the past couple of years. Apparently, Datamonitor just got hip to green IT.

A report from Datamonitor — which, incidentally, will only set you back nearly $1,900 — is predicting that CIOs will have an upswing in interest in green IT in 2008. Well, duh. And duh. And duh again.  Not to be presumptuous, but the staff of SearchCIO-Midmarket.com has been big pimpin’ when it comes to green IT for a while now. If you really want to see the most comprehensive coverage of the issues that fellow midmarket CIOs are encountering with green IT, please, for everyone’s sake, check out our (free) resources.

There’s one final interesting bit of news that I thought would be worth relating here. EWeek Mid-Market is reporting that vendors are cottoning on to the power of the midmarket by listening to companies’ demands:

“As of late, these [midmarket] companies have become a major focus of the IT vendor community because collectively these types of companies now spend more on IT than companies that have over 1,000 employees.”

Oh … ok. That sounds like good news for the midmarket CIO. I’m not saying that you’ll be able to hold Big Blue over a barrel and beat lower prices out of it like dust from an old rug, but it does sound like vendors are starting to listen.

Before you know it, vendors will understand the power of the midmarket side!