Many IT people today are not focused on energy efficiency. They consider green to be a facilities building issue and not a technology issue. Research done at Yankee Group has shown that the IT team has much to contribute to the green office. This document will discuss ways in which the IT department can facilitate the creation of an energy efficient workplace.

The green office has been a major initiative in the United Kingdom for several years. In the UK and on the European continent, cities are older, larger, and have more space and power constraints. Going green has been driven by necessity in the UK and Europe. In the United States the tendency has been to work around high power costs. Google is an example: when power and land costs became prohibitive, they moved their data center to the Columbia River.