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Not all green IT strategies are about highly complex technologies like virtualization and cooling systems-- others can be much more basic.

Basic systems are also being devised by IT developers, such as one that can turn off electricity to television sets in hotel suites, when the guests are not in their rooms, to help save electricity costs.

According to Tom Conophy, CIO of the InterContinental Hotels Group, his IT people are working with manufacturers to enable television sets that can switch from a complete off state, to a standby mode, when returning guests step into the hotel lobby.

Typically, when guests leave their rooms, the television sets go into standby but still consume electricity, says Conophy. While setting television sets to turn off completely is the solution, guests would want their sets to start screening almost immediately.

"So what we are trying to do is that when you check in downstairs, we would actually send a signal to the entertainment system to turn the TV into standby mode. We have half a million rooms out there, so we can help by conserving," explained Conophy.

The practice of turning off lights in facilities also helps in conserving energy. In the hotel group's data center in Atlanta, the "lights out" practice has generated about US$50,000 in electrical savings in a year, adds Conophy.

Using Less Paper

Besides power conservation, one relatively simple "green" method is reducing paper utilization. At Gartner, the organization is currently rolling out duplex printing by default on all its printers worldwide and eliminating banner pages, says Darko Helic, SVP and CIO.

Another "green" method involves minimizing employee travel. Ultimately, this helps reduce emissions caused by driving and commuting to work, says Helic. To achieve that, his organization has encouraged the use of virtual collaboration technologies and remote working.

Similarly at Nortel, employees are encouraged to use teleconferencing -- both audio and video instead of travelling to meetings, and telework to reduce real estate footprint and commuting, says Eric Lauzon, CIO, Nortel Asia.

"As a result, 10 percent of all Nortel employees telework, and 85 percent are equipped to work remotely," says Lauzon. "To put these figures into perspective, Nortel currently has 31,400 employees in 240 offices in 59 countries. Our efforts to directly cut down on harmful emissions caused by driving and commuting to work, are steps in the right direction."

Sustainable Green

However, CIOs should look at how to move product and service design beyond simply "green IT" and power consumption to tackle the much more challenging issue of "sustainable IT", says Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president, Global Research, Gartner, during Gartner's Asia CIO Summit in Singapore earlier this year. One particular area that CIOs should address would be reducing the IT department's carbon emission, he suggests.

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