The payoff in your office? Plenty of new products that will cut your electric bill.

The reason for optimism? IT marketers and consultants are licking their chops because the Green IT market is expected to grow 60% a year through 2013 to create a $4.8 billion market. That’s the rosy scenario predicted in the latest market survey by the consulting group, Forrester Research, Inc.

The research notes that all the heavyweights in the office equipment and computer world are scrambling to upgrade their product offerings to play to the growing demand for green products that lower energy costs and cut greenhouse gas and other air pollutants.

For example, Xerox has developed a new, more energy-efficient formulation of a toner it uses in its printers. Its green toner cuts power demand during manufacturing and use of the product. This innovation cuts:

• Xerox’s power demand by 15% to 30% to make the Ultra Low Melt toner, and
• the electricity needed to operate a customer’s printer by 50% to 80% because the new formulation melts the toner at lower temperatures.

How’s all this possible? Xerox is using the science of tiny particles, nanotechnology, to make smaller and more detailed particles of the resins used to make the toner. It uses the new toner in its ColorQube 9200 printer that’s touted as 90% more efficient than other color printers.