A survey of 752 IT professionals provided a mixed assessment of U.S. organizations' pursuit of green IT.
CDW Corp.'s 2009 Energy Efficient IT Report found that more organizations are implementing server virtualization and using desktop power management features this year than in 2008.
But the extreme budget pressures of the economic recession have caused IT managers to focus more on short-term costs rather than long-term energy savings when purchasing equipment.
One issue is that many IT managers don't actually have responsibility for the amount and cost of energy used in IT operations. According to the report, IT managers who do "own the IT energy bill" are twice as likely to make energy efficiency a high priority in purchasing decisions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new Energy Star program for servers appears to be gaining traction: 90% of the survey respondents said that their next server purchase is likely to have the Energy Star label.