PALO ALTO, Calif. — Although most IT professionals and executives are concerned about rising energy expenses from data centers and growing demand for data processing, few have plans or are even putting green computing practices in place, says a new Lean & Green Report.

Lean & Green: Reducing IT Energy Drain for Business Gain, is part of the Lean & Green Leadership project by the Business Performance Management Forum and BlueArc Corporation. The program is gathering information on issues and opportunities within green computing and aims to educate companies about the benefits of green IT.

The latest report surveyed more than 150 IT professionals online and through meetings. While almost 75 percent said green computing is at least somewhat of a priority and about half said it's important or essential, 41 percent have specific green plans and 42 percent have set no or moderate goals.

Even though many have not set goals, most feel green IT can be beneficial for the budget, with 20 percent thinking their organizations could save $100,000 or more a year and 6 percent saying they could save $10 million a year.

Even in the face of rising energy costs, companies are increasing their consumption of energy for power, cooling and lighting as well as consumption of space. Energy efficiency has been given more priority, with 60 percent of companies taking efficiency into account when purchasing new equipment.

The report includes summaries of some of the executive dialogs looking at specific companies' IT concerns and actions, along with a white paper, Taming the Data Center Colossus, giving a deeper look at data center issues.