Going Green

Last week I attended the annual JISC conference in Birmingham with interesting keynote speeches from Lord David Putnam who is currently Chancellor of the Open University, and Angela Beesley, co- founder of Wikipedia. It was the opening remarks from Professor Sir Ron Cook, Chair of JISC that struck a cord with me though when he mentioned the concept of “Green Computing” as a future area that JISC is likely to address. In fact I searched the JISC website for references to green computing and already there are 20 results that include JISC strategic papers and calls for projects to research the topic.
Anyway feeling very virtuous having just ordered my new discounted composting bin from Waste Aware Scotland I decided to investigate how I might add a greener tinge to my gadgets and discovered a few easy ways to reduce the impact of some of the technology I use on the environment.
Power Saving
Newer LCD flat screens are not so vulnerable to "burn"and I understand screensavers are less important now but use just as much power as when the PC is in active use. By enabling power management features such as “sleep” or “hibernation” settings your PC and monitor will power down to a low power state when they are not in use. Right click your desktop > properties > screensaver > settings and here you find power management options. To re-activate you usually press the on/off button.
Don’t turn your printer on until you are going to use it and break the habit of turning your computer on first thing every morning.
Paper Saving
It seems that instead of creating “paperless” offices, technology has actually increased the consumption of paper. Print as little as possible by reviewing and editing documents on screen and always use the print preview before sending a document to print to minimize the number of draft copies you make but recycle those you do. Save rather than print email messages, and try and use email instead of a FAX. If your printer’s up to it always print on both sides. File > print > properties > finishing > print on both sides.
Although these changes might seem trivial on an individual basis, if scaled up to institutional level could have a very positive effect on the amount of energy used and the environmental impact as well as making significant financial savings.

Video, audio, presentations and photos from the JISC annual conference
Managing environmentally sustainable ICT in Further and Higher Education
The Green Lounge