Mood's In Control
1. http://www.grist.org/article/rebooting-campus-computing/This article talks about the UC(University of California) system greens electronics program. According to this article, the UC system got a little greener by passing an “Environmental Sustainability Policy” that includes provisions on energy, global warming, waste, and eco-friendly electronics purchasing.
Same with this school, our university can adopt their practices by following what they are adopting too. Some of these practices are the following:
• adopting guidelines for buying greener electronics
• finding better ways to dispose of e-waste
• initiating “takeback” recycling
Their school system will only buy products registered under the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, which computer equipment according to a set of environmental standards such as reduction in harmful chemicals, designs that are more easily recycled, and product longevity. I don’t know if we have this in our country but I guess we have our equivalent value for this. They also have integrated a "takeback" requirement in their purchasing contracts that will force electronic manufacturers to take care of used products, and they have also created criteria for responsible recycling for those vendors. This criteria includes a ban on both exporting the e-waste to developing nations and using prison labor in there country.
2. http://www.isc.uoguelph.ca/documents/061211GreenComputingFinalReport2006_000.pdfThis url is about Campus Computing and the Environment which is a Report of the Green Computing Task Group to the Information Services Committee(ISC) that identifies green computing policies and best practices elsewhere and benchmark the University of Guelph against these practices, recommends a campus awareness program, identifies energy conservation strategies and practices, examines the need for and nature of computing procurement guidelines, and identifies equipment disposal procedures.
The University of Guelph should take pride in its advanced E-Waste Disposal program and the high level of participation on campus. The well crafted Policy on Environmental Protection could be strengthened and enhanced by the further development of sustainability policies and possibly the establishment of a monitoring board. However, the top priorities identified by the task force involve education, assessment, and collaboration in the establishment of environmental awareness and practice on campus with regards to “green computing” throughout the entire lifecycle of the products.
Top Priorities:
Campus Awareness Program
1) Conduct a survey of the different target audiences on campus to:
a) Gauge awareness of and participation in current energy reduction practices and e-waste management practices.
b) Identify barriers to participation in the above practices.
2) Develop campaign based on social marketing theory, moving beyond information provision to motivation and persuasion techniques, identifying effective shortterm incentives and longterm behaviour modification strategies.
a) Develop a media strategy in conjunction with IT and Communications & Public Affairs (to be developed by Sustainability Coordinator).
b) Ensure campaign informs campus IT professionals of the support and services available through the Sustainability Coordinator and Purchasing in implementation of green computing solutions.
3) Measure and evaluate the success of the awareness program and the adoption of conservation or procurement practices by developing indicators and publicize the results.
Energy Conservation Strategies and Practices
1) Survey current power management policies and practices across campus.
2) Develop a plan, with IT personnel, to reduce the energy consumption of computers across campus.
3) Identify standard practices for implementing an energy reduction plan.
4) Coordinate participation of IT in an energy reduction plan with campus environmental policies and campus awareness programs.
5) Work with Physical Resources on the development of an energy consumption measurement program and energy indicators that break down energy consumption in a way that is easily communicable and relevant to the campus.
Computer Procurement
1) Establish standards and benchmarks with which to define a green purchasing policy for computers.
2) Define Purchasing policy complete with purpose, scope and procedures.
a) Developing a green procurement directive.
b) Construct terms and conditions for future tenders and contracts.
c) Incorporate labeling programs into a university green computing procurement initiative. Adopt standards issued by ecological standards associations and
identify their labeling programs, i.e., Energy Star, EnerGuide, Green Seal, etc.
d) Communicate procurement information resources within the University community via Purchasing Service’s website and provide resource links as
appropriate. Incorporate training and education of new environmental criteria and processes into existing client training program.
3) Report / update purchase activity in support of green initiatives, including progress to
date to Sustainability Coordinator for incorporation into campus awareness program.
3. http://www.it.utah.edu/leadership/green/index.html - Green Computing at the U of U.This site is the University of Utah’s overview about Green Computing. This discusses some techniques and best practices for End Users of Green computing that are easy to incorporate.
With a number of desktop computers in use at the University, there is a great amount of power used and a great amount of both paper and electronic waste produced. Some simple solutions can help to reduce the impact of these deployments.
Paper Waste
• Print as little as possible. Review and modify documents on the screen and use print preview. Minimize the number of hard copies and paper drafts you make. Instead of printing, save information to disks, or USB memory sticks.
• Recycle waste paper, have a recycle bin at each community printer and copier location.
• Buy and use recycled paper in your printers and copiers. From an environmental point of view, the best recycled paper is 100 percent post-consumer recycled content.
• Save e-mail whenever possible and avoid needless printing of e-mail messages.
• Use e-mail instead of faxes or send faxes directly from your computer to eliminate the need for a hard copy. When you must fax using hard copies, save paper using a "sticky" fax address note and not a cover sheet.
• On larger documents, use smaller font sizes (consistent with readability) to save paper.
• If your printer prints a test page whenever it is turned on, disable this unnecessary feature.
• Before recycling paper, which has print on only one side, set it aside for use as scrap paper or for printing drafts.
• When documents are printed or copied, use double-sided printing and copying. If possible, use the multiple pages per sheet option on printer properties.
• When general information-type documents must be shared within an office, try circulating them instead of making an individual copy for each person. Even better, make the document electronically available to the audience and display it on a projector.
Electronic Waste
• Use the campus network where possible to transfer files. This avoids the need to write CDs or DVDs or use floppy diskettes.
• Use USB memory sticks instead of CDs, DVDs, or floppies.
• Use re-writable CDs and DVDs.
• There are hopes of the University Recycling program addressing e-waste in the near future
For Power Management, by using power wisely and enabling the power management features in your computer's operating system, you can save energy while ensuring that it's available to you when you need it.
Please consider the following:
• Turn off your computer and/or peripherals when they are not in use. Turning on and off will not harm the equipment. If you use a desktop printer, consider leaving it off when not in use.
• Don't run computers continuously unless they are in use continuously.
• Turn your computer off or set it to hibernate at night and on weekends.
• Disable screen savers on LCD monitors/displays - these are no longer necessary and use a lot of energy.
• Look for ways to reduce the amount of time your computer is using energy without adversely affecting your productivity. Follow the simple steps below to turn on computer and monitor/display power management features for Windows and Mac operating systems.
Energy Saving Settings
Energy saving modes can go by many different names, including Stand By (Microsoft Windows 95-XP), Sleep (Mac OS-X)/ (Windows Vista), and Suspend (Linux). When placed in this energy saving mode, aside from the RAM which is required to restore the machine's state, the computer attempts to cut power to all unneeded parts of the machine. Because of the large power savings, most laptops automatically enter this mode when the computer is running on batteries and the lid is closed.
Please make use of these best practices in order to develop a practice that best fits your individual needs. These suggestions are intended for users who manage their own computer.
