It’s hard to find an organization that’s greener than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA’s National Computer Center in North Carolina was one of the first data centers to receive a silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Network World's National Correspondent Carolyn Duffy Marsan interviewed EPA’s CIO Molly O’Neill about virtualization, screen savers, recycling and other tips for creating environmentally friendly IT shops. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

How are you applying the EPA’s Energy Star guidelines to your IT department?

As we acquire computers or printers or monitors or imaging equipment, one of the things we do is ensure that we are procuring Energy Star products. But being energy efficient isn’t just about Energy Star. When we’re looking at our infrastructure, we’re looking at virtualization and consolidation. Then we’re looking at management support, operational controls and remote assistance [to improve energy efficiency]. And we’re looking at disposal to see if a piece of equipment is recyclable. We are designing our data centers to be energy efficient. It’s a life-cycle process that you need to look at.

Can you describe the life-cycle management process for green IT?

If we’re designing something new like a data center, we think about building design. We also look for opportunities for IT consolidation and virtualization to optimize the existing [data centers] that we have. The second thing we look at is acquisition. We acquire Energy Star products, and we look to see if they are recyclable. Then we look at the management and support aspects of our infrastructure. Can we do printing in a more efficient way? Do we have controls on our systems like screen savers and system standbys that allow systems to hibernate and conserve energy? Do we have remote operations and assistants? The last piece is disposal. If we upgrade, how do we get rid of existing equipment? Can we meet the federal challenge to recycle all of our computer equipment? We ask ourselves: Are we designing our total IT infrastructure and the facilities that hold our IT equipment in a way that is environmentally friendly? Are we putting in appropriate cooling aspects in the floors under these data centers? Do we have system controls on our lights? Green IT is all of these things.