Green Campus Computing

Assignment # 4 - MIS
Find three(3) URL's that talk's about "green campus computing" and suggest ways how the university can adopt this concept.

It is a fact that global warming has been a pretty disturbing issue that should be addressed by humans.The real issue in this problem is the extent of the human activities that are adding to the natural level of warming that contribute to the greenhouse effect, and gives potential bad implications for human society and life on earth.

We are aware that computers have evolved into something that is essential and has been a part of our lives.
Since computers play a vital role in our lives (especially in field of IT), we often forgot that computers also contribute to the degradation of the environment because it uses large amounts of electricity and some even adds to the growing e-wastes.

As one of the major computer users, we should at least be responsible and consider contributing to the preservation of our environment.

Since the assignment clearly specifies green “campus” computing and not green computing only, I will be featuring websites that features schools specifically universities that practice green computing.

Here are some of the websites that I found that features green campus computing.

1. http://www.energymanagement.umich.edu/utilities/energy_management/computing/
2. http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/news/campus-computing-comes-up-green-1.345643
3 . http://esi.ucsd.edu/esiportal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=228&Itemid=101

Recommendation..

Just like the universities that I mentioned above, our university can also adopt their strategies in implementing green campus computing.

Based on the strategies from the site that I featured, here are some of my suggestions:

1. Create a specialized department in our university that separates anything that can be still utilized from true e-waste. Usable items are recycled or resold while the ones considered as waste should be handled or turned over to certified companies that process e-waste in an environmentally responsible manner. Aside from reducing waste, this kind of activity can generate financial resources for the university.

2. In order to reduce systems power consumption,

...Avoid using screen savers because it will still consume a certain amount of power even when the computer is idle. The best way is to automatically turn off the monitor after a reasonable period of inactivity.

...The University should also buy equipments that are Energy Star certified to ensure efficiency and will consume less energy compared to non-certified ones.

...In the future, the university should also have a centralize data operation to reduce systems power consumption by concentrating the power consumption on one campus data center instead of a decentralized one.

...And finally..the most obvious of all, make sure to turn off and unplug all power consuming devices when not in use.

On a positive note, I noticed that green campus computing is not a new concept to our university specifically to our College. Even before, I noticed that our college has been already using reused papers. There were also times where some of our professors also use reused papers as test papers during exams.

In addition, I would also like to commend our College for finally replacing some of our CRT monitors to LCD monitors which are more efficient because they can save more energy.