Why Green IT Should Run the Facilities Department

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One of the biggest problems enterprises face greening IT is political and organizational --- what incentive is there for IT professionals to reduce data center power use if the electricity budget falls under the facilities department? Increasingly, IT pros will come up with this answer: They should run the facilities department.

This may sound like a radical step, but as I found out last week at the Green Computing Think Tank last week, organized by the Green Computing Impact Organization (and GreenerComputing), it's already happening. And it's paying off big time for organizations that do it.

One former CIO I talked to told me that as soon as the facilities department was turned over to him, he made big changes. The first thing he did was to essentially put a meter on his data center. He then experimented with a variety of ways to reduce power use, and found big payback.

Using his analytical skills, he compared energy providers, and jettisoned the existing provider for a lower-cost one. He then surveyed the entire company for ways to save on electric use, and began installing lower-use lights as well.

He's not alone. I also spoke to an IT pro at a major hospital in the Northeast who had to rent space for a new data center. For the first time, he had to pay for electricity out of his own budget. "It was the first time I had ever seen an electricity bill at the hospital," he said.

His first step? Yes, you guessed it --- he put a meter on the data center. Then through virtualization, consolidation and other steps, he managed to reduce his energy budget by 40%.

Today these are rare stories. Research by the Standish Group shows that only eight percent of IT organizations today pay for their electricity --- that budget still primarily falls under the facilities department.

As long as IT has no direct, financial incentive to green the data center, change will come slowly. So at a minimum, all data centers should be metered, and the budget for that electric use should fall under the IT department. If IT manages to save electricity, they can use the money elsewhere, or else get a bonus of some kind.

But there are also good reasons to turn over the entire facilities department to IT. IT is in the business of gathering and analyzing data. They can apply these same techniques to greening the entire enterprise's facilities, not just the data center.

Sure, it will mean that IT pros will have to learn new skills --- and that's all to the good.