JM Family Enterprises Joins Computerworld Annual List of 'Top Green-IT' Companies

Henry Ford famously said that when it came to his Model T, buyers could choose any color, as long as it was black. Today, black remains the most popular car color among European consumers. Car buyers in Russia prefer silver, India loves white—and so does the United States, where 20 percent of new car sales were white last year, and 17 percent were black and silver.

It’s interesting that, although most auto dealers and service providers are dedicated to “going green” and making sustainability a goal in their organizations, and buyers are beginning to consider “green cars” in terms of electric and hybrid technology, green itself has not been a popular color among buyers since the 1990s.

The color green is very popular In Deerfield Beach, Florida, this week, where privately owned JM Family Enterprises, Inc., is celebrating placing number 12 for the first time on the 2011 Top Green-IT Users list  compiled by IDG’s Computerworld.com and Computerworld magazine. 

“We are honored to be recognized as one of the leading organizations in green IT,” said JM Family Enterprises CIO Ken Yerves, adding,  “As we continue to invest in new technology, our goal is to minimize our environmental impact, support sustainability through best practices, and establish business and community partnerships that promote a greener way to conduct business.”

For the fourth year in a row, Computerworld set out to identify organizations that are implementing smart, efficient strategies to achieve green IT. Organizations were invited to complete a comprehensive questionnaire online from June to August 2011. Computerworld contacted representatives at the 70 participating organizations to verify the information provided on the surveys was truthful and accurate. Only those organizations that filed verification letters were considered. With the help of green IT industry experts, Computerworld applied a set of criteria to identify the organizations that are working to reduce energy consumption in IT equipment and are using technology to conserve energy and lower carbon emissions. Based on the weighting scheme developed, the top 12 Green-IT Users and top 12 Green-IT Vendors lists were chosen.

JM Family was chosen for its commitment to reducing its environmental impact through decreased consumption and conservation of non-renewable resources, and encouraging innovative solutions to create a better environment for its associates, customers, business partners, and the community.  Among the company’s many recent technology-related green investments are:

• Installing a 202-kilowatt (kW) rooftop solar array in Alpharetta Georgia, which is capable of offsetting its data center energy use;
• Deploying  a 33-kW rooftop array in Deerfield Beach, also designed to offset data center energy requirements; and replacing 1,400 physical servers with virtualization technology, helping reduce energy consumption by 5,575,000 kWh per year;
• Implementing a print reduction initiative this year that is designed to cut paper consumption by 12,000 pounds annually;
• Launching a virtual desktop project under which IT aims to eventually provide all employees with virtual desktops; and
• Using Dell’s Asset Recovery and Recycling services to resell, recycle, or dispose of obsolete servers, monitors, desktops, phones, mobile devices, and network equipment in a secure and environmentally safe way, according to EPA guidelines. 

“Many of the organizations recognized in our fourth annual Top Green-IT issue have woven energy-saving initiatives into the fabric of their IT strategies,” said Scot Finnie, editor in chief, Computerworld. “These top organizations are tapping the collective brainpower of their IT staffs to capitalize on existing technologies that lower energy use and seek out new methods to better control their carbon footprints.”

The 11 other 2011 Top Green-IT Users named by Computerworld this year were (in descending order, from one to 11): Kaiser Permanente, KPMG, State Street, Allstate Insurance, NBV Universal, Baker Hughers, Northrop Grumman (News - Alert), Citigroup, Nixon Peabody, Raytheon, and Prudential Financial.

The top 12 2011 Green-IT Vendors (also in descending order) included: Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert), Accenture, Microsoft, Qualcomm, IBM, BT Group, SAP, Internap Network Services, Dell, and Avnet.