How to Get the Green Machine Rolling in Your Data Center

You’re tired of maintaining the status quo while other data centers in your industry are going green. You’re ready to start using alternative energy, recycling heat, and implementing green infrastructure.

So, how do you go about actually getting the ball rolling with green energy in your enterprise?

Before you can get started with these exciting projects, there are a number of hurdles that you need to clear. First, you need to get the C-suite on board with your sustainability agenda. There may even be other department heads like IT or facility managers that you need to communicate with as well. After all, no one person is in charge of your data center.

To present a convincing argument in favor of moving forward with emissions-reducing initiatives, make the following points:

Corporate social responsibility:A federal mandate requires businesses to reduce CO2 levels by 30 percent of their 2005 levels by 2030. By embracing sustainability now, your business will be ahead of the curve.

Save money: Going green can be as simple as investing in data center power monitoring software. Using this technology, you can keep a close eye on your business’s real-time power consumption and look for ways of reducing your daily load. Your business can also use this technology to monitor its energy usage over time and benchmark its progress (which directly feeds into our first point about reducing CO2 levels by 2030).

Customer appreciation: By going green, your company will also generate positive press. Use UPS’s annual sustainability report as an example of a great resource that can live online and let your customers know that your business is committed to helping the environment.