(IBM: Armonk, New York) -- A new IBM consulting offering can help clients lower their environmental impact, increase efficiency, and reduce costs by applying lean Six Sigma principles to energy and water usage throughout their operations.

“There’s a fundamental truth to understanding and improving any aspect of a company’s performance—if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” says Dave Lubowe, global leader of IBM’s operations strategy consulting practice. “This applies as much to a company’s energy and water consumption as it does to anything else, and our new offering can help clients apply this principle to make their businesses greener.”

This new offering applies lean Six Sigma principles wherever energy and water are used throughout a client’s operations, from transportation systems, datacenters and IT systems, to manufacturing and distribution centers, office facilities, retail space, and research and development sites.

IBM’s own conservation efforts have saved the company 4.6 billion kWh of electricity, $310 million in costs, and avoided more than three million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions since 1990. The company’s work-at-home program for employees saves roughly eight million gallons of gasoline annually.

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