In a report entitled “Conflating Lean and Green Is Unwise”*, Gartner claims that vendors and buyers alike are fascinated by green IT.

“It is technically challenging, creates new work, offers fresh problems for jaded intelligent minds and even has the halo of a ‘social good`. But, as is often the case with new IT mega-themes, enthusiasm is not being tempered by sufficient critical thinking. In particular, we are seeing a tendency to directly equate green IT issues with lean IT. This will lead to deceptive short-term progress and we believe it will equally often lead to longer-term pain.

“Green,” says Gartner, “means environmentally sustainable IT as well as IT that contributes to sustainable business processes. This requires a complex set of compromises and carefully balanced decisions based on detailed analyses of interacting technology production and operating factors. In many cases, the data required to make sound decisions does not exist or has only recently surfaced. For example, most vendors of IT equipment do not know the total ‘embodiment` energy cost – the energy consumed in making and shipping an item.