Some of the biggest energy savings for small business operations are right in front of you, but you can’t actually see them.

Reason: They’re in the latest computer chips inside cash registers. Or if you’re past accepting cash, then the lingo is point-of-sale (POS) terminal.

Companies looking to rack up savings and credits for reducing their carbon footprint can achieve both when they’re ready to upgrade. Just make sure you compare the energy efficiencies of the products you’re considering.

These new POS systems are a whopping 40% more energy efficient than previous models, thanks to huge efficiency leaps made by semiconductor maker Intel, Inc. That translates into 40% cuts in your electricity demand.

For example, Fujitsu America is promoting its upgraded line of POS terminals, the TeamPoS 3000 XL2, which features the latest Intel chips. Fujitsu won a contract to supply shoe and hat retailer, Genesco, Inc., based in Nashville, TN, with its cost-cutting (electricity-wise that is) POS terminals in 1,000 stores.

Since the highly efficient Intel chips produce much less heat than earlier versions, new POS terminals don’t produce nearly as much heat as before, so they don’t need side ventilation. This also lets retailers set up their cash registers in tight spaces.

Genesco says it will not only save money by reducing its electric bill, but it also expects to spend less on maintenance and replacement costs.

Increasingly businesses can expect to see significant gains in energy efficiencies from various computer-based products, especially those that rely on Intel’s chips.

Reason: Intel and all manufacturers with global markets are under tremendous pressure from the European Union (EU) to reduce their direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To the EU, that means not just GHG emissions from Intel’s manufacturing facilities, but from Intel’s entire supply chain as well, from parts suppliers to those using its products.

So, due to the pressures on Intel to green its supply chain, products with Intel chips will increasingly be more and more energy efficient, and businesses that purchase those products will reap the energy savings benefits.

Editor’s note: Website hosting is another example of an industry that’s profiting from going green. Many in the industry are taking green web hosting to a new level – and reaping the benefits of a growing customer base along the way. Not only are their data centers running on wind and solar direcly, they are also focusing on efficient data center operations with the latest in high-efficiency hardware and cooling systems.

If you don’t believe it, just ask the 100,000 companies that supply Wal-Mart.

The chain has overnight become the most potent mover of environmentalism, far more potent than EPA because companies that want to do business with Wal-Mart have to provide all sorts of sustainability information. Wal-Mart’s using the information to create a Sustainable Product Index that will slap a green rating on all products on its shelves.

But this is just the beginning of the retailing revolution, according to futurist Bob Johnansen, with Palo Alto, California-based Institute for the Future and author of Leaders Make the Future.

The not-too-distant future will feature everyday shoppers checking the greeniness of products instantaneously with simple apps on their cell phones. Shoppers looking to buy green will simply point their cell phone at the bar code on a product and get sustainable ratings on that product before they make their selection, Johansen told attendees at the Green Business Conference here in San Francisco.

And, what could be troubling for traditional corporate marketers, Johansen says, is that they’re losing control of the message because the Consumer Reports-type green ratings will be provided not by the manufacturer, but by major change makers like Wal-Mart or third-party eco-conscious organizations. Think of the movies Terminator and Minority Report where instant analysis is presented to man and machine.

In effect, consumers will instantly obtain product comparisons and ratings — like how far this product had to travel to a store, which is a measure of a product’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions — well before the traditional marketer can influence a sales choice at a checkout counter.

The technology to be able to deliver this type of sustainability rating already exists. It’s basically the same use of technology that lets you find a nearby restaurant on your iPhone. So it won’t be long before companies will have to respond to this new technology, a change that will be driven by the marketplace, not by government regulation.

To be prepared, companies may want to consider tracking their own environmental footprints, such as indirect GHG emissions, waste vs. recycling rates, water consumption, etc.  Then companies will want to tout any reduction in related pollution and explain how that change makes the company greener.

Within the next 90 days, all federal agencies have to explain how they’ll reduce energy and water usage and, of course, explain how they’ll reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The agencies have to have these plans ready by Jan. 5, 2010 under an executive order signed last week by President Obama.

A similar order by President Bush ordered federal agencies to purchase eco-friendly electronics products — those that are certified under the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) program run by the Green Electronics Council.

But Obama’s order pushes federal agencies much more aggressively to make federal buildings much greener. The agencies that run the government’s 500,000 buildings have to meet a number of green goals, such as:

• imposing sustainability purchase requirements in 95% of federal contracts
• improving water efficiency by 26%
• increasing recycling and waste diversions from landfills by 50%, and
• reducing petroleum fuel purchases for federal fleets by 30%.

To meet these goals, federal agencies will have to purchase environmentally preferred products and services, promote wider use of renewable energy systems (wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels), set net-zero-energy building requirements, purchase alternative fuel vehicles, and reduce stormwater runoff.

Those supplying federal agencies may also find themselves voluntarily reporting their GHG emissions and reporting how they’re actively trying to reduce these emissions. Vendors will be pressured to do this because Obama has ordered the General Services Administration, the agency that buys most of the products for federal agencies, to study how to create a GHG registry for GSA vendors.

This would have major repercussions throughout the supply chain feeding federal agencies. Vendors not on the list or not making progress in reducing their GHG releases could be locked out of federal contracts.

The information to do this would likely be based on the GHG emission data that will be reported to EPA starting next year.

The 2009 GSA Global Supply Catalog: Environmental Products is available here.

The problem breaks down to the old adage, it takes money to make money.

A new survey by CDW consultants finds that only 23% of small companies (those with fewer than 100 employees) have made the move to green IT. By contrast, 66% of large companies (those with more than 1,000 employees) have already made the move.

CDW’s Green IT Survey reveals that companies admit that the cost of the upgrades is holding them back. Other problems faced by small- and mid-sized companies include lack of expertise and a lack of internal know-how to make the switch.

However, this resistance to embracing green IT is changing.

The CDW survey also reveals that the numbers of companies planning on making an upgrade within the next two years is increasing. 31% of small companies plan to upgrade and 23% of medium-sized companies surveyed said they’d be upgrading.

There is money to be saved by investing in green IT technology because it cuts your company’s energy usage. Last month, 51% companies told CDW that they had cut operating costs by an average of $53,000 a year thanks to green IT upgrades.

But CDW’s most recent survey also reveals that money is not the only green IT driver. While 38% cite financial reasons for upgrading, 55% say their primary motivation is saving the environment. Another 45% say they’re interested in green IT because it enhances their company’s reputation.

The switch to paperless recordkeeping is well under way. You know this already through the rising requests from bankers to eliminate your paper bank statements. But the momentum is expected to ramp up within the year.

Reason: 92% of 300 companies surveyed say they’ll introduce programs to switch their customers to an all electronic system within the next 12 months, according to the Green IT & Sustainability Survey 2009 made by consultants IDC.

Sure, the switch to paperless records of all kinds could help enhance a company’s green reputation. But that’s not the point.

The prime driver behind the go-paperless movement is bottom-line economics. Your service providers intend to maximize their investments in Green IT technologies, according to IDC’s Vernon Turner, because their computer infrastructure investments are under-utilized, so the switch to paperless helps justify all that Green IT equipment.

The survey also reports that 64% of companies said the switch was driven by desires to cut energy costs, and 46% listed sustainability as a reason to go paperless this year.

The IDC report is here. The 15-page slide presentation goes for $500.

Meanwhile, more proof of the trend to paperless is underway in the healthcare industry.

As the New York Times reports, hospitals are investing heavily to digitize patient records and dispense with the paper. Hospitals certainly see the move to electronic records as a win for the environment, a win for the patients by cutting costs, and a win for themselves by getting a leg up on their competition.

Based on a survey of 752 IT professionals, the technology firm CDW Corporation says organizations are wasting millions of dollars on energy costs that could easily be pocketed instead of sending hard-earned dollars to the local utility company.

Looking longer term, this wasteful spending will only mushroom, CDW warns, because energy use by the nation’s data centers is expected to double within two years.

Key problem: The recession forces many IT managers to buy cheaper equipment that is not as energy efficient as better quality products that would save their organizations money in the longer term.

This losing trend can be reversed, CDW Vice President Mark Gambill says, by making IT departments aware of what their energy bills are.

Many companies are ahead of the eight ball. They’re bringing home the Green IT savings by adopting rather simple strategies. CDW’s Energy Efficient IT Report found that those saving money with Green IT programs:

• buy equipment with low-power/low-wattage processors
• use network-based power management tools
• install software tools with uninterrupted power supplies to monitor energy demand and use
• use sensors to turn off lights when rooms are empty
• manage cable placement to reduce air conditioning requirements, and
• use server and storage virtualizaion to reduce the need for on-site power and cooling demand.

By focusing on these strategies, 51% of IT departments reduced their total energy costs by an average $53,000 a year. In the higher education sector, 54% of universities have cut their power costs by 1% or more, for an average of $22,000 a year in savings.

For example, CDW’s report notes that the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC, think tank, cut its energy bill by $58,000 a year by modernizing its computer room. The Institute did it by switching to blade servers, modernizing its cooling system, taking advantage of an energy audit and adopting EPA’s free, power management tool, EZ GPO.

Brookings also gets credit for cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 447 tons per year.

CDW’s study can be downloaded here. A summary of the survey results and implications is here.

Two new studies show that the IT guys are the culprit.

Oh, they’ve got a great excuse: “Sorry, but our computers will melt if the server room gets too warm.” Until now, most people just accepted this excuse and soldiered on, in the cold, in the summer.

But no more.

Turns out computer rooms don’t need to be cold enough to chill champagne. Computers can safely operate at a toasty 80.6° F (27° C), according to the American Society of Health, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

As reported in The Register, however, virtually everybody’s wasting money over-cooling their computer rooms. Of 98 companies surveyed by the Data Center Users Group, none let their computer rooms rise above 74°F and most kept the servers in a 70° F environment.  Brr! The Register story is here.

Unfortunately, you can’t just turn the AC off in the computer room because some equipment warranties unnecessarily require overly cold room temps. To fix this problem, IT execs will need to negotiate with vendors to convince them that it’s safe to warm up the computer room so the company can cut back on its energy bills.

There’s another reason why IT departments so willing to spend extra money to over cool their precious server rooms. It’s mostly because they’re not paying the electric bill.

A new study by technology consultants CDW reveals companies are wasting millions of dollars by running up power and air conditioning bills. Reason: The study found that IT managers are overly focused on the price of the equipment, not the overall cost of operation, and cheaper equipment comes with much higher operating costs.

But when you also give IT execs the bill for their energy usage, they’re more than twice as likely to then focus on buying equipment that’s more energy efficient, which cuts down on overall operating costs. CDW’s 2009 Energy Efficient IT Report is here.