In the case of Metropolitan Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank), one of the biggest financial services institutions in the Philippines, green computing is defined and approached in a two-pronged manner. "For us, energy saving needs to be translated into real bottom-line benefits," explains Jose Raymund Vergara, chief technology officer of Metrobank. "At the same time, Metrobank, being a good corporate citizen, also wants to promote practices that are good for the environment."

Since 2007, Metrobank has been employing a host of different technologies that shave a significant amount of energy consumption off their regular bills. Its data center, for one, has been employing a fewer number of servers thanks to server virtualization. "The ratio of servers to applications has been drastically cut down [since implementation]," Vergara notes.

Servers, being one of the significant components of the data center, also have demanding power requirements. Vergara says they have significantly cut down on power consumption from servers by deploying units with low-wattage processors installed.

But Metrobank's energysaving agenda isn't entirely relegated to its data center alone. Out on the floor and into their branches, Vergara says they are replacing their CRT monitors with LCD screens after realizing that these consume less power. "Obviously, LCD monitors are more expensive, but after some pencil-pushing, we discovered that the payback for these monitors will be achieved in just five years," he shares, adding that the recent downward movement in prices of LCD monitors is going to make that payback time shorter.

Years into utilizing green computing technologies, Vergara says employing energy-saving technologies have brought them not only monetary benefits, but hard-line efficiency gains as well. "Green computing plays a part in the overall emphasis for processes that benefit the institution as a whole," he relates.