Soon (if not already) rising energy costs may force your business to pursue a greener way of running the data center.

Paul Rubens over at ServerWatch examines why looming government intervention, rising energy costs and concerns over the environment are leaving businesses little choice but to find ways to boost energy efficiency. The best way is to build a green data center from the ground up. Of course, that doesn’t help the aging facilities in current operation.

For those, there’s this recommendation:

Assuming you're not quite ready to tear down your buildings and start again, there's still plenty you can do to reduce your electricity bill and reduce your carbon footprint. Perhaps the most effective action you can take is to reduce the number of servers in use at any one time. Each server you switch off can reduce your electricity bill by up to $500 per year (and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air annually by perhaps 2000 pounds) directly, with about the same savings again realizable from reduced cooling requirements.