Another green tech lobbying group you should make it your business to follow

The other day, I mentioned the Technology CEO Council and the various things the group has started lobbying for when it comes to support the advance of green technology. Another collaboration that will inform the future of green tech, at least as far as legislation goes, is the working relationship between the Information Technology Industry (ITI) Council and The Green Grid.

ITI actually has been around since 1916 and today it represents about 40 of the largest U.S. tech companies, representing something like $635 billion in annual revenue. The usual suspects are members, including AMD, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Oracle. Predictably, they've got their hands in plenty of activities related to where green tech may go, such as the Energy Star program, green procurement and energy efficiency initiatives. The overriding mission of all these different efforts is to encourage "innovation-friendly" government policies.

If you're in charge of a data center operation, here's where you should really pay attention. Because ITI is very focused on part of the new Energy Bill that relates to Data Center Efficiency. Here's the spot in the legislation that explains what's up. Basically, the law provides for the creation of a voluntary program that is a cooperative effort of the government and private industry to develop and set metrics for data center efficiency. It covers everything from ventilation to servers to data management that could reduce storage requirements.

(Incidentally, here's a summary of the major provisions of the energy bill, but even this document is kind of intimidating.)

Naturally, both ITI and The Green Grid have a vested interest in making sure they are part of the dialogue. Given that the law gives the Environmental Protection Agency 90 days to get this new program started, and the bill became law on Dec. 17, we should be hearing more news soon on next steps for this initiative.