The blog exists to help get out the messages that the JISC’s activities in the area of “Green-ICT” are producing. JISC exists to help the UK Higher and Further education sectors to make best use of the opportunities that ICT can bring to the activities of research, teaching and learning and administration.

However all this use of ICT has a cost – a cost to the environment and a cost to the bottom line of institutions as energy prices continue to rise. JISC is now funding activity that will help the sector to deal with the management of environmentally sustainable ICT.

JISC is currently funding four projects which address the environmental sustainability of ICT and these are:

1. Suste-IT Project – This one year project is investigating the whole area of managing sustainable ICT in Higher and Further Education. It is run by Professor Peter James of the University of Bradford and Sustain-IT. This project is conducting an overall exploration of how institutions are developing means of dealing with the issues of Green-ICT, and is also running a series of workshops on aspects of this agenda.
2. Low Carbon ICT – a project run at the University of Oxford that is developing a solution to the problem that if one switches off PCs that are not in use, then sending patches or waking them for remote access will not be possible;
3. Location Independent Working – Coventry University are developing policies and practices that will allow them to roll out a properly supported and robust system for allowing their staff to become location independent workers. One of the outputs from this projects is a measure of evaluation as to the change in the environmental impact of their activities.
4. ITS 4 SEA – The University of Bradford is running this project (which stands for Integrating Thin client systems and Smart card technology to provide integrated, flexible, accessible and Secure E-Assessment.) which is evaluating thin client technology as an environmentally, secure and sustainable alternative to the PC.

Please feedback your comments and main issues regarding the management of environmental sustainability of ICT at your institution by using the comments section of the blog.