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Green Survey
Higher Ed Least Likely Sector To Adopt Energy Management Policies
8/5/2008
These included:
- Senior management capitalizing on internal support for energy efficiency initiatives;
- Implementing institution-wide policies on energy consumption;
- Assigning responsibility for energy management to employees;
- Measuring power consumption in the IT department to provide initial data for energy initiatives; and
- Involving students, faculty, and staff in environmental initiatives.
Other findings in the higher education sector include:
- Only 49 percent of higher education institutions assign someone within the IT department the responsibility for energy costs in the IT operation versus 59 percent in other sectors;
- Only 31 percent of higher ed IT executives indicated that energy efficiency is an important factor when purchasing end-user equipment (desktops, etc.);
- Energy efficiency is a more significant consideration in the purchase of data center equipment (36 percent);
- 49 percent indicated that the IT department "receives reports, authorizes payments, or otherwise has responsibility for the amount and cost of energy used in the organization's IT operations" (versus an average of 57 percent across all sectors); and
- A full 79 percent said that the inability to measure energy usage in the IT department is a significant barrier to improving energy efficiency.
Cross-sector Findings
Taking all sectors into account, 94 percent of IT professionals said their organizations are "taking steps to manage IT energy consumption and energy costs." But only 34 percent cited energy efficiency as an important consideration when purchasing new equipment. The top priorities in purchasing new equipment in higher ed, as cited by survey respondents, were durability and ease of use.
Of those IT departments with responsibility for IT energy costs (which accounts for 57 percent of all IT departments), 88 percent are involved in developing strategies for managing energy consumption. In IT departments that do not have this responsibility, only 38 percent are involved in developing energy efficiency strategies. Of those with energy management strategies in place, 90 percent reported seeing favorable results, and 39 percent reported energy savings of 1 percent or more. (Some indicated that while they have not reduced their energy costs since implementing a strategy owing to rising energy costs, they'd be worse off with no strategy at all.)
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Among those organizations that have reduced energy costs by 1 percent or more, there seems to be no single way in which IT staffs are helping to lower consumption.
Fig. 2 below shows the mix of techniques employed by these organizations.
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