In a new report titled “IDC Predictions 2009: An Economic Pressure Cooker Will Accelerate the IT Industry Transformation,” IDC  predicts an that 2009 is going to be an interesting year for IT spending. One bright spot is green technology, which the report says “will have a good year, disguised as ‘cost cutting'” with “good demand for green tech that can deliver near-term savings.” You can download the full report here.

What exactly is a green technology? Depends on who you ask. I define it very broadly as any technology that can be used to reduce negative impacts on the environment. With a myriad of potential uses for better resource management, to me GIS clearly falls in to the category of green technology.

My coworker Jim Baumann recently wrote the following introduction to an ESRI Best Practices e-book called GIS is a Green Technology. The paper will be published on the ESRI web site in January 2009.

GIS Supports Global Green Initiatives

With the growing awareness and unease among large segments of the population that remedial action must be taken to resolve the many environmental crises we now face, GIS solutions are currently being implemented around the world that provide the technological and scientific support necessary to create programs and processes that return our planet to a more sustainable and balanced level of use and quality of life.

Whether increasing the efficiency of fleet vehicles by optimizing standard routes and subsequently reducing fuel consumption or determining the optimum location for a wind farm to produce energy with minimal pollution, GIS provides the quantified information and analytical capabilities necessary to make decisions that can both support growth and reduce consumption.

The visualization capabilities of a GIS afford a unique way of examining things that promotes creative “out-of-the-box” thinking; providing insight and solutions that are not so apparent in written reports and tabular data. Often, an existing GIS implementation stimulates the catharsis needed to modify existing business practices or apply new ones that lead to savings in both cost and resources.

The stories included in this e-book detail GIS-based applications for innovative, sustainable solutions to many of today’s common environmental problems. Cascade County, Montana uses GIS to map the optimum locations for wind farms and promote investment in this “green energy” source. Buffalo, New York known as the “City of Trees” maintains its urban forest inventory with GIS. Air pollution in Jakarta, Indonesia is severe. In 2004, 46 percent of all illness in the city was respiratory-related. Backed by GIS-based scientific studies, the government has implemented an ambitious plan to improve air quality. The release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere is the fundamental cause of global warming. GIS is being used in the study and implementation of CO2 sequestration programs, which either captures the pollutant at its source or through the planting of vegetation to absorb it. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used GIS to restore the natural habitat of the Middle Rio Grande River in New Mexico and the city of Boston, Massachusetts is implementing an ambitious solar energy program, using GIS to calculate the solar radiation available on the city rooftops.

As ESRI President Jack Dangermond has often said, “The application of GIS is only limited by the imagination.” GIS is a Green Technology provides an introduction into the powerful capabilities of the software when applied to environmental and sustainability issues, as well as the ingenuity of those developing these innovative applications.