There's a lot of wishful thinking when it comes to detailing the bottom line benefits that can accrue to companies who pursue a green IT strategy. Enterprises make assumptions that they'll improve the bottom line by improving their IT department's environmental record. But is it, in fact, true?

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In partnership with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Lawrence Berkeley Labs, the Department of Energy and others, the new report shows how adopting energy efficiency policies and hardware management practices can lead to significant cuts in power consumption for any data center.

REDMOND, Wash. -- The company recognized that reducing energy consumption sometimes depends on behavior, not technology. So Microsoft began looking for ways to financially motivate its employees to change their behavior.

AMSTERDAM, -- TeleCityGroup plans to use sound to measure humidity and air temperature and speed in order to boost energy efficiency in its data centers.

In an unflinching assessment of their green credentials, more than 40 percent of European IT directors and board-level decision-makers surveyed said their firms' environmental performance is "not at all good" or "poor," according to reports of a sweeping European study.

Any attempt to green IT should begin with virtualizing your servers, which is one of the fastest and easiest ways to reduce energy use and costs, and reduce the overall carbon footprint of your IT organization. In this column, Andrew Binstock offers clear advice on how virtualization can help, and includes links to useful benchmarks.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Despite the daunting challenge of developing a performance-based rating system for servers, the EPA plans to have a phase-one version of the new Energy Star standards ready by year's end.

IBM will spend billions of dollars on its "Big Green" initiative over the next several years. David Metcalfe, Director of Vendantix, takes a look at the initiative, and offers six lessons that IT managers and CIOs can learn from it.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Data center managers have technologies at their disposal that can nearly halve energy consumption and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to taking 8 million cars from the road, according to new research.

ROUND ROCK, Texas -- The new server power unit is a year in advance of several energy-efficiency certifications, and is part of Dell's overall strategy to be the world's greenest tech company.

Increasing the efficiency of your data center doesn't have to mean spending a great deal of money. Larry Pepper, senior practice manager for EMC Infrastructure Consulting, shows how you can green your data center and reduce operating costs while working within your existing capital budget.

MILPITAS, Calif. -- The new line of flash memory, unveiled yesterday by Spansion and Virident, is designed to replace DRAM in servers for search-heavy applications; the companies estimate significant energy savings and reductions in TCO.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Looking at marketing, perceptions and adoption of energy-efficient IT products around the globe shows distinct movements in what motivates companies and countries to purchase green IT, as well as how some have succeeded in branding themselves as green while others struggle.

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- Even as the technology sector's carbon footprint is expected to double in the next 12 years, applying tech tools to monitoring energy use, maximizing energy efficiency and reducing the need for travel, shipping and resource use could save businesses billions of dollars and cut overall CO2 emissions, according to a report released today.

Until very recently, the need for IT to really include eco-concerns as part of overall strategy did not have universal appeal. But now, due to skyrocketing fuel costs, there is no longer any ambiguity about how much to commit to green. It's now emerging as a mandate for all IT centers, even small ones. In this column, Andrew Binstock examines changes in the structure of IT departments that some experts are suggesting are necessary for enterprises to successfully navigate the green issues.