How Deloitte's IT team has gone green

What are some of the components of the practice office initiative?

The move away from personal printers to more energy efficient devices with duplex printing is one aspect. Wireless network deployment is another. By putting wireless everywhere, we could reduce the number of Ethernet switches in the closets and reduce power. We're also going to reduce the amount of cable that we run into our new locations and renovations by 50 percent, and that's also where green comes in — less copper, less waste, less cabling that ends up in landfills and in buildings.

Videoconferencing is another one we're spending quite a bit of money on. We're putting in high-definition immersive videoconferencing. Some of these rooms are large, they can hold 20 people. They really allow us to bring travel down. In addition, we're moving to videoconferencing all the way to the desktop. We're putting in travel scorecards to track how many trips are being taken and the travel metrics. We really want to see some reduction as a result of our videoconferencing deployments.

What about your education and awareness initiatives?

We've got Web sites going to get the awareness messages out there. We have a variety of leadership meetings across the country and green IT is now one of the things we're highlighting. We'll have a booth there that tells people about the various initiatives.

What elements of your program would you say are delivering the most bang for the buck thus far?

Server consolidation for sure. That's the one where we're most mature. We understand how to do virtualization of the servers and we've removed hundreds of servers from the environment already. In the data center, there's been a reduction of backup tapes and such, so we're getting there with that. In the practice offices, we're well underway with the printers, duplex printing and the videoconferencing deployments. We're really just getting started with the whole PDA recycling program and getting people accustomed to it. We're about to ramp it up now by actually requiring it.