Forrester is promoting a $279 report under title "Is Green IT Your Emperor with No Clothes?" The author and his colleagues appear to have created a straw dog for the sake of a provocative title.

It's always prudent to be initially skeptical of any green initiative, since many never transcend "feel good" or "look good" outcomes. And Green ICT initiatives should not be exempt from such scrutiny. But the report seems to offer no widespread evidence that Green IT is the fairytale illusion the title implies. To the contrary, I find much Green ICT to be very grounded in real-world payback. (Any it was only a few months earlier that Forrester was flogging another $279 report call "More Green Progress in Enterprise IT".)

The choice of title is particularly unfortunate because the report actually appears to offer solid advice, such as the importance of establishing a "green IT baseline" prior to implementation. Yet the negative title is being reprinted in enterprise media, thus potentially undermining of the credibility of serious Green ICT initiatives.

[Disclaimer - I have not shelled out the $279 for the full report and have relied on public information published by Forrester and others.]