CIOs are seeing green sales pitches on all types of products. One challenge is seeing past the marketing hype – especially when it comes to products that have been available for some time, but are finding new life as “green products.” Many are “being promoted by marketing people taking the same products in many cases and suddenly marketing as ‘Well, this will help,'” says Robert McFarlane, principal data center consultant at Shen Milsom & Wilke, in a TechTarget article.

Many data centers already have the right equipment that will help them save energy, McFarlane says. “If we just apply the products we have correctly, use them correctly, design and operate them correctly, we can save a lot of energy right off the top,” he says.

CIOs should make a distinction between green product and green supplier and make it clear in the RFP process that they’re interested in both, according to Christopher Mines, senior vice president at Forrester Research. He suggests that CIOs ask about a product’s inception, how it is manufactured, packaged and shipped and how it will be disposed of when it reaches the end of its life span.

The article is an interesting read alongside a new survey (PDF) from Aperture Research Institute. According to the survey, green data center management is unconvinced by vendors’ claims to be marketing more environmentally friendly equipment.

Twenty-six percent dismissed such claims as hype, and 42 percent said they had no way to validate the claims. It seems that even those organizations that are committed to reducing their environmental footprint do not trust vendors to help them do so.