What are YOU waiting for?

Never heard of green IT projects but you can save a lot with just simply turning off your computer when you leave from work and save electricity that way.

Thought provoking question, Jessica. I think the fundamental issue impeding the deployment of green policies in companies lies in the cost. They do have to weigh the pros and cons between their social responsibility to the community versus their enterprise responsibility to their shareholders. More often than not, companies opting for the implementation of such do look at the benefits in the longer term, which translates into a much more energy savings and a heightened social image. Naturally, governments can introduce programs to encourage such but at the end of the day, it really boils down to how much "leverage" they can get in the longer run.

I work in the telecom field and from what I have seen, the majority of CIOs won't move toward green technology because it is not highly visible. In other words, if the business decides to "go green" and print all stationary on recycled paper, then that can be seen by customers and give the business a brownie point. But going freen in the IT arena does not directly offer any "marketing" benefit to the business so that gets put on the back burner.
I know this is not really what you were looking for in the comments, but I kind of see things from an outsiders viewpoint.

Initially the cost of all green technology is going to be high. It's only when mass production factors and R&D kick in that it will start to get cheaper, thus being utilised more and more. Meantime no one wants to be the one suggesting spending more budget resources than necessary.
Rob

In many cases, cost is the major deterrent. The easiest programs to push through are ones that have a business case. Thus, it is easiest to get projects approved that reduce cost, usually by reducing energy usage, but these projects are also contingent on having the cash on hand to make an investment in long-term savings.

As for waiting for enterprise-wide policies, it is possible that some departments and managers are hesitant to invest in one green tech with the possibility that another one will become the defacto choice after a policy is implemented, thus requiring an additional investment and the loss of sunk costs prior to recuperation.

Outside of projects that have a freestanding business case, the desire to wait for an enterprise-wide policy is perfectly understandable, as the investment will then be justified at an organizational level rather than departmental.

There are three main hurdles to companies adopting Green IT.

1) Cost
If companies are going to implement any new systems, there will be additional cost to the existing systems no matter what. We all know that cost-savings (as well the defacto eco benefits) for the long-term is the impetus to adopt many green policies. If you calculate ROI on a time trajectory, certainly you can see the impact in the long run, however, the initial investment must be from current cash flow.

2) Legacy Systems
This ties into the first answer, what happens to your existing technology? The existing equipment has surely depreciated and so it will be difficult to recover any previous investment. You will also need to train your staff on the new technologies. There is a learning curve that prohibits an instantaneous shift. In order to implement new systems, there is a transition period that requires the old system and new system to co-exist - during this period the cost is double and there is room for errors.

3) Performance
Will the green IT outperform the existing IT in every way? Many times no. For most companies, simply 'doing the right thing' is not impetus enough to make sacrifices on quality and performance.

The answer I have given is something that blankets size of corporation, but I will give an example with my small business - we are a 3 year old small start-up. We actually don't have a lot of IT investments, however, we do have a website and webhost that we have worked with since the incorporation of our company. About six months ago, we inquired with the webhost if they were taking any green initiatives such as carbon offsetting or implementing alternative energy power for their servers. Their reply was that they felt carbon offsetting was a sham, and they did not have the capital to pursue alternative energy. So it took six months later for us to sign up with another webhost, that is powered from Solar Energy directly. However, now that we have signed up, we have discovered that the new host does not have nearly a robust system as our previous host and they are more expensive. We see that there will be a learning curve to use the new system that has less features yet we are committed. So in the meantime, we are paying double, and figuring out how to do what we have done previously with less features. And in this case, we are hoping that in the long run, the solar webhost will be popular enough to drop their rates and improve their features - however, there is no guarantee, so in this example we are actually signing up to pay more indefinitely.

Now this is an example with minimal cost on a small business level, and being the owner of the company, I can make this decision. You can start to see the inhibitions becoming much larger depending on the size of the corporation.

Doing the right thing - should be incentive enough theoretically, but if the 3 factors mentioned above jeopradize the vitality of the company in any way, you can see why the green IT plan will stop dead in its tracks.

My answer is addressing what the obstacles are, but I believe all companies have to eventually realize that without the environmental commitment, we won't be worrying just about the vitality of our companies, but of our entire society. So I hope someday, environmental cost is added to the equation for all.