Savoring the fruits of the Green 15's seeds

Spurred by business needs as well as environmental concerns, green IT projects blossomed in datacenters and on desktops throughout the world in 2007.

To encourage environmentally sound practices in a world where the serious repercussions of climate change are becoming all too clear, the first annual Green 15 award recipients are those organizations that have made significant energy-saving, waste-reducing initiatives.

This year's winners are, in alphabetical order:

• BT Group retrofits to reduce carbon footprint

• Bryant University datacenter built to scale efficiently

• Digital Realty Trust mines energy savings from LEED Gold

• EMC gets greener with IT-facilities partnership

• Fujitsu taps hydrogen power to fuel energy savings

• Hewlett-Packard manages power efficiency from afar

• IBM tackles IT energy efficiency on a Big Blue scale

• GM2 Logistics marries SANs and sustainability

• The Green Grid metrics sow the seeds for IT sustainability

• Juniper Networks sheds nearly 1.3B watts

• Miami-Dade County Public Schools pinches PC power consumption

• NetApp manages to keep its cool

• One Laptop Per Child low-power laptop empowers and inspires

• Sun Microsystems plants pods for sustainability and savings

• Verizon Wireless rings in desktop power savings

What's behind green-tech initiatives and the choices

The impetus for green IT projects -- not just those in the Green 15 -- run the gamut: Some companies are struggling with limited space and power to keep pace with their ever-increasing technological needs, and thus need to eliminate and consolidate machines. Some seek to put a dent in soaring energy bills through power management and improved heating and cooling. Some are committed to protecting the environment by reducing waste and cutting their carbon emissions. And some are, quite frankly, investing in green technology not for the environmental benefits -- nor necessarily the lower power bills -- but because it happens to meet another business need. The green payoff is a happy bonus.

The goal with the Green 15, however, wasn't to simply reward initiatives based on what inspired them. Rather, we considered the net effects of the projects, taking into account what technologies and best practices were applied to a business goal and what the ultimate result was in terms of environmental benefits, the business implications, and the lessons learned to be applied to future initiatives.