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Posted Jan 13, 2009

Green IT at Educause Regional in Philadelphia

by Mike Halm

Green IT is getting a lot of attention these days. A recent session at the 2009 Educause Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference in Philadelphia presented an engaging panel that discussed this subject with four presenters discussing efforts on what their organizations are doing to contribute to being Green within their IT organizations.

One of the more engaging and informative discussions at the recent 2009 Educause Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference in Philadelphia focused on Green IT.  The title of the panel was What's Your Carbon Footprint? Sustainability and Green IT Initiatives That Make a Difference. During the session I was impressed with the efforts underway in these largely urban universities. The presenters were Jeffrey C. Cepull, Vice President and CIO, Philadelphia University, Joe Cruz, Sr. IT Project Leader, University of Pennsylvania, Amy Phillips, Sr. IT Project Leader, Technology Support Svs ISC, University of Pennsylvania, and Donald Z. Spicer, ECAR Senior Fellow & Assoc Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, University System of Maryland.

During the course of the presentation and discussions, I was struck with the variety and innovations being made to clean up the the aftermath of IT fallout. Also I wondered what Penn State and ITS is doing to contribute to these efforts.  I found a lot on the subjects of sustainability, environmental stewardship, green architecture, recycling, energy consumption, etc. on various Penn State websites but not a whole lot on efforts underway in ITS. While this is not a subject that gets a lot of visibility in ITS, I am sure some things we are doing are making a difference. I thought I would share the Educause presentation that I received from one of the presenter with our ITS community in hopes that it might motivate ITS to consider being more active in these areas.

Could we be doing more?

My sense is yes, based on what I heard from these presenters.

Does ITS have a Green IT plan?

I haven't heard anything.

Is there a group within ITS interested in this subject? 

I would be curious to hear from you.

Here are some Penn State links I found, but I don't see much information on Green IT initiatives. If we are, we should be telling our story in a more visible way. Maybe this is an area we could devote a bit more thinking, I think ITS could make a significant contribution to making Penn State a more Green university, what do you think?

 

I would appreciate your comments.

Thanks.

 

 -- Mike Halm, WebLion group

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ITS Green team

Posted by Robin Anderson at Jan 14, 2009 09:19 AM
Actually, ITS is working on this. Janda and Robin B are leading the effort. There's a wiki https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/GreenIT/Home - open to faculty/staff, where ideas are being captured. There is also a monthly meeting, open to anyone in ITS, where we discuss best practices and how we can do more. The group is hoping that as our central IT organization finds ways to be greener, we can share our methods with other IT units at Penn State.

Green IT at Penn State

Posted by Mike Burns at Jan 14, 2009 12:05 PM
Mike,

I saw this posting at Inside ITS. You must have missed an earlier posting about the formation of an ITS Green Team on Inside ITS a few months back. There's a wiki space for it at https://wikispaces.psu.edu/display/GreenIT/Home. There have been two meetings so far and the next meeting is Monday 01/19/2009 from 3:00-4:00 in 141 Computer Building. We hope more people will join us.
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