Environmental Leader

Here are five tips from a CIO interview with Michael Dell about energy efficiency:

1. CEOs must be engaged in developing strategies. A top-down energy efficiency strategy works better than a bottom- or middle-up one.
2. Consolidating data centers and virtualization are logical first steps.
3. Make sure the IT and facilities departments both understand the metrics that are being used to measure the savings and have ironed out a way to share those savings.
4. Energy conservation is not a project for just one quarter or one fiscal year.
5. Supply chain or procurement partners should be held to the same green standards as your company.

In November, at Oracle OpenWorld 2007, Michael Dell discussed green initiatives in the data center including plans to release a reference architecture that will help enterprises reduce power consumption.