ADDIS ABABA UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION
SCIENCE
PROJECT TITLE: -
course title: - seminar
GREENinITinformation
systems

MEMBERS: - ID
 Abreham Taye NSE/4592/10
 Asmamaw Aseged NSE/1419/10
 Robel Gebeyehu NSE/4171/10
 Tinsae Birhanu NSE//10

Submitted to: - Instructor Tsegaye b.

Submitted Date: - 07-08-2014 E.c

Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................6
What is green IT?.........................................................................................................................................6
History of Green IT Technology...................................................................................................................6
WHY GREEN IT?...........................................................................................................................................7
Development of Green Technology.............................................................................................................7
Major causes for Green computing (IT).......................................................................................................7
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lot of electricity is used............................................................................................................................7

Creates more poisonous waste...............................................................................................................8
Goals and implementation of green IT........................................................................................................8
Design Green:..........................................................................................................................................8
How to implement green design?...............................................................................................................8
Product Permanency...............................................................................................................................8
Product Size.............................................................................................................................................9
Green manufacturing:.............................................................................................................................9
How to implement green manufacturing?..................................................................................................9
Green usage:...........................................................................................................................................9
How to implement green use?..................................................................................................................10
Green disposal:......................................................................................................................................10
How to implement green disposal?...........................................................................................................10
Areas of focus where green computing is highly demanded.....................................................................10
Green Servers and Data centers............................................................................................................10
Green Cloud Computing........................................................................................................................11
Approaches to Green Computing..............................................................................................................12
Virtualization:........................................................................................................................................12
Terminal servers:...................................................................................................................................12
Power Management:.............................................................................................................................12
Video Card:............................................................................................................................................12
Telecommuting:.....................................................................................................................................13
Display:..................................................................................................................................................13
Algorithmic efficiency:...........................................................................................................................13
Power supply.........................................................................................................................................13
Materials recycling................................................................................................................................13
Storage..................................................................................................................................................14
Advantages and disadvantages of Green IT...............................................................................................14
Advantages of Green IT.........................................................................................................................14
Reducing carbon and other GHG emissions.......................................................................................14
Recycling Process...............................................................................................................................14
Increasing cooling efficiency in the data center.................................................................................14
Reducing energy costs.......................................................................................................................14

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Companies are saving tons of money................................................................................................14

Reducing the amount of space need for servers...............................................................................15
Helping to minimize their environmental impact..............................................................................15
Disadvantages of Green IT.....................................................................................................................15
Implementation Cost.........................................................................................................................15
Maintenance......................................................................................................................................15
Rapid technology change...................................................................................................................15
Adaptation.........................................................................................................................................15
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................16
References: -..............................................................................................................................................17

Acknowledgement
First experience of assignment has been successfully, thanks to God. We wish to
acknowledge all of them. However, we wish to make special mention of the following.
We take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep regards to we
guide. We must make special mention instructor Tsegaye our Green IT assignment
supervisor for giving us his valuable time, attention & for providing us a systematic
way for completing our assignment. I am thankful to staff members of Addis Ababa

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university, for the valuable information provided by them in their respective fields. We
are grateful for their cooperation during the period of our project.

ABSTRACT
Green information technology (Green IT) is an emerging discipline and issues related with it are
of growing concern for the business, social and environmental impact in the 21st century.
Sustainability is becoming an important topic in IT to safeguard our future, and as evolving
market segment. Recently more specific focus on “greening” information technology (IT) and
information systems (IS) has been evident all over the world. An increase in green jobs is also
occurring with many of those associated with information technology. The main constraint with
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green jobs related with IT or otherwise, is finding educated and qualified professionals. Due to
this, there is a growing demand for green computing/information technology/information system
education. The objective of this paper is to review such an available green IT/IS curriculum
recently introduced by leading universities and organizations.

Introduction
Green IT is the study and practice of minimizing the environmental impact of computer system
and related resources effectively and eco-friendly. It is an emerging concept towards reducing
the risky material and save our environment from the harmful impacts of the computer, CPU,
servers and other electronic devices.
Green IT is basically concerned with the Computers when they are manufactured, used and
disposed with no side effect on environment. Use of computer plays a vital role in our
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environment pollution. In this era 70 percent of energy is consumed by our computers which are
not in properly used and is still turned on and that consumed energy is main reason of co2
emission. So now there is a big need to save our environment and live a healthy life.

What is green IT?

Green information technology, or more commonly known as Green IT or Green computing, is
the practice of environmentally sustainable computing. Essentially it is the study and practice of
using computers and IT resources in a more efficient and environmentally responsible way.
Typically, “Green IT” is focused on energy usage and cooling data centers. That’s important, but
misses the point of the circular economy, which aims to redefine growth, focusing on positive
society-wide benefits. By extending the life of IT equipment and by recycling the materials, you
can provide environmental benefits, not just GHG emissions savings, but also toxins, water, etc.
But those aren’t the only benefits.

History of Green IT Technology

Green computing is started in the 90’s when US environment protection energy launched the
Energy Star Program. Energy star is a program of label awarded to computers and other
electronic devices. It is basically used to minimize the use of the energy and maximize the
efficiency of the product/device. This labeling program is basically designed to promote and
recognize the energy efficiency in monitors, climate control equipment and other technologies.
This technique basically increases the adoption of “sleep mode” among consumer’s electronics.
In the early days, before the industry revolution, people were using the main source, the sun, to
generating the heat, they also used the other source to assist their daily life, such as horses as
their transportation use, animals like cows and donkeys as their labors, and the wind will use to
move the sails and generate the simple machine.

WHY GREEN IT?

Green computing is popular now days. By using the computer, we save our lot of time and
efforts of humans. But the use of the computers also responsible for increases the power
consumption, IT consume about 17% of the world’s electronic waste and also generates around
2% of the world’s CO2 emissions. This means that IT contributes to environmental degradation
because the majority of all e-waste is dumped in countries where regulations are less strict and
because electricity that’s generated by fossil fuels causes global warming. With internet usage
continuing to grow and more and more people using cell phones, tablets and other computerized
devices, the environmental impact of IT is expected to increase.

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Development of Green Technology

There are various types of green technology such as wind power, solar energy, hydroelectric
power which is derived from the water movement, biofuels which is derived from burning plants
and animals’ substances., geothermal energy which is derived from the heat that given off by the
earth, biomass which is produced by the organic materials such as plants and animals.

Major causes for Green computing (IT)

lot of electricity is used

There are many amount of electronic devices for day to day use let’s consider a one which is
used by almost everyone (A Computer). CPU uses 120 Watts CRT uses 150 Watts 8 hours of
usage, 5 days a week = 562 KWatts if the computer is left on all the time without proper power
saver modes, this can lead to 1,600 KWatts for a large institution, say a university of 40,000
students and faculty, the power bill for just computers can come to $2 million / year.
Energy use comes from electrical current to run the CPU, motherboard, memory running the fan
and spinning the disk(s) monitor. (CRTs consume more power than any other computer
component). Printers’ computer energy is often wasteful leaving the computer on when not in
use. (CPU and fan consume power, screen savers consume power) printing is often wasteful how
many of you print out your emails or meeting agendas printing out partial drafts for a paperless
society, we tend to use more paper today than before. Most of the natural resources are being
used to get the electricity that all have some influence on the environment. To save the electricity
we have to use the green computing.

Creates more poisonous waste

Most of us are updating our computers, throwing our outdated computer resources, peripherals
and other hardware devices etc. when they are being disposed of giving birth to e-waste and
pollution.
There are toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing of computers and components which can
enter the food chain and water. Chemical Elements Found in Computers and Components.
 Elements in bulk: lead, tin, copper, silicon, carbon, iron and aluminum.
 Elements in small amounts: cadmium and mercury
 Elements in trace amounts: germanium, gallium, barium, nickel, tantalum, indium,
vanadium, terbium, beryllium, gold, europium, titanium, ruthenium, cobalt, palladium,
manganese, silver, antimony, bismuth, selenium, niobium, yttrium, rhodium, platinum,
arsenic, lithium, boron, americium.

Devices containing these elements almost all electronics contain lead & tin (as solder) and
copper (as wire & PCB tracks), though the use of lead-free solder is now spreading rapidly lead:
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solder, CRT monitors (Lead in glass), Lead-acid battery. Another problem which is faced with
respect to environment and management is disposal of the e-waste. Disposal of the electronic
devices constituted 20-50 million tons per year (about 5% of the total waste of the planet).
Europe has outlawed using landfills for computer components the US and Europe export a lot of
e-waste to Asian landfills (especially China even though China has outlawed the importing of e-
waste) in addition, incineration of computer components leads to air pollution and airborne
toxins.
These are the hazardless toxic waste we are producing that really damaging the environment now
a day. For that reason, we have to use the Green Computing.

Goals and implementation of green IT

The goal of green IT is to increase environmental sustainability throughout the entire lifecycle
along the following four flattering path: -

Design Green:
is known as designing energy-efficient computers, servers, printers, projectors and other digital
devices that are environmentally friendly. Like using materials that won’t become waste when
the products are recycled.

How to implement green design?

Product Permanency 
is an important part in the design process? With goals of producing greener technology, one must
strive to make the product lasts for as long as possible. Often the biggest use of resources come
from making the product during the manufacturing process. It is more economical and eco-
friendly to upgrade or modulate equipment, rather than produce a new one.

Product Size 
is another aspect of green design? The trend of technological components getting smaller, as well
as faster, benefits the green initiative. Smaller form factors require less energy to function and
less materials to build. An example of this would be flash drives and Solid state drives (SSDs)
which use less electricity per gigabyte than hard drives.

Green manufacturing:
is the minimizing of waste during the manufacturing of computers and other subsystems to reduce the
environmental impact of these activities? Green manufacturing can be looked at in two

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ways: One being the manufacturing of "green" products and secondly the "greening"

of manufacturing-reducing pollution and waste by minimizing natural resource use, recycling
and reusing what was considered waste, and reducing emissions.

How to implement green manufacturing?

Companies today strive to remove toxins/hazardous materials from their computers. 
A list of the different materials that manufacturers are using to build computer parts:
Cane – is becoming increasingly popular for making casings for computers and
peripherals. It has the advantages of being a sustainable and quickly renewable resource
and it is lightweight and stylish.
Recyclable plastics – many computers are constructed from non-recyclable plastics but
there is an alternative. One way is to use recyclable polycarbonate resin.
Environmental flame retardant – Flame retardants are often some of the most toxic
chemicals in traditional PCs, there are flame retardant silicone compounds available that
are flame retardant and completely non-toxic.
Removing lead soldering – getting rid of the lead makes a big difference, it can protect
individuals responsible for breaking down computer component during the recycling
processes and prevent toxins leaching into the ground and water supplies at landfills and
storage points. 

Green usage:
Reducing the energy ingesting of computer and other information system as well as using them
in an environmentally sound manner.

How to implement green use?

Average computer users can employment the following general tactics to make their computing
usage greener:
Use the hibernate or sleep mode when away from a computer for extended periods
Turn off computers at the end of each day
Refill printer cartridges, rather than buying new ones
Buy energy efficient notebook computers, instead of desktop computers
Use flat-screen or LCD monitors, instead of conventional cathode ray tube (CRT)
monitors
Make proper arrangements for safe electronic waste disposal

Green disposal:
Re-making or recycling unwanted electronic equipment’s

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How to implement green disposal?

Reuse: donate your computer components to people who may not have or have lesser
quality computers.
Reduce: rather than discarding your computer upgrade it. Change its some of the parts in
order to make it new.
Recycle: Parts from outdated systems may be salvaged and recycled through certain
retail outlets and municipal or private recycling.
Many organizations, including some manufacturers themselves, are willing to take equipment
back and recycle the components into new products.

Areas of focus where green computing is highly demanded

Green Servers and Data centers

In a world where business is transacted 24/7 across every possible channel available, companies
need to collect, store, track and analyze enormous volumes of data. But this all comes with a cost
to both businesses and the environment. Data warehouses and the extensive data centers that
house them use up a huge amount of power, both to run legions of servers and to cool them.
Sixty-three billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, at an estimated cost of $4.5B annually.
The IT industry has begun to address energy consumption in the data center through a variety of
approaches including the use of more efficient cooling systems, virtualization, blade servers and
storage area networks (SANs). But a fundamental challenge remains. As data volumes explode,
traditional, appliance-centric data warehousing approaches can only continue to throw more
hardware at the problem. This can quickly negate any green gains seen through better cooling or
more tightly packed servers. To minimize their hardware footprint, organizations also need to
shrink their "data footprint" by addressing how much server space and resources their
information analysis requires in the first place
For many of the technology giants, one of the biggest costs they face is in maintaining data
centers. For companies like Google, Facebook organizing the world's information comes at the
high cost of running some of the largest, most sophisticated data centers in the world. Energy use
is one of
Their biggest operational expenses for many of these companies. This creates an alignment of
environmental and business interests for companies like Google and Facebook, who are finding
innovative ways to reduce their energy consumption. Google is incredibly active in creating
efficient data centers, maintaining tight control of all their operation. In fact, this is arguably one
of Google's core business areas. They design and build their own facilities and recycle all of the
equipment that leaves their data centers. The battle between the tech giants, Google, Apple and
Amazon, is on some level a battle over data centers. All of these companies are striving to create
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efficient data centers that will house the world's information while minimizing financial, and
environmental impact. Both Google and Apple have opened data centers that are either wholly or
in part fueled by alternative energy. Google has created an entirely wind powered data center,
and Apple has recently filed for patents for proprietary wind turbine technology. This shows how
central energy efficiency is to the goals of these tech firms. Data center companies may opt to
trim down the idle and unused servers.
Alternatively, they may also embrace measures that reduce energy consumption such as
exploiting renewable energy like:
Geothermal Energy: The data center providers can make use of geothermal energy, which is
available naturally in plenty in Iceland and mid-west nations.
Solar Energy: Solar panel installation is one of the very common and energy efficient ways to
meet the industry’s power requirements.
Wind Energy: As of now, very few firms use wind turbines as a source of energy, but in the
very short future, the data center industry would surely be seen adopting this source for its
energy requirements.
Reprocessing Heat: Several firms are recycling heat released from the racks’ back for
generating energy.

Green Cloud Computing

The wide-spread adoption of cloud computing could lead to a potential 38% reduction in
worldwide data center energy expenditures. The savings would be primarily achieved by
consolidating data centers and maximizing power usage efficiency, improving recycling efforts,
lowering carbon and gas emissions and minimizing water usage in cooling the remaining centers.
Because so much of a data center’s energy expenditures support data storage, the Storage
Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has promoted new technologies and architectures to
help save energy. Advances in SAS drive technologies, automated data duplication, storage
virtualization and storage convergence reduce the amount of physical storage a data center
requires, which helps decrease its carbon footprint and lower operating expenditures and capital
expenditures. On Green IT analysis of Clouds and datacenters that show that Cloud computing is
Green, while others show that it will lead to alarming increase in Carbon emission. It is pertinent
to mention here that green cloud computing comes with enormous benefits. some of them are
Reduced Cost, Automatic Updates, Remote Access Disaster, Relief Self-service provisioning,
Scalability, Reliability and fault-tolerance, Ease of Use Skills, Proficiency, Response Time,
Increased Storage Mobility.

Approaches to Green Computing

Virtualization:
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Computer virtualization is the process of running two or more logical computer systems on one
set of physical hardware.

Terminal servers:
Terminal servers have also been used in green computing. When using the system, users at a
terminal connect to a central server; all of the actual computing is done on the server, but the end
user experiences the operating system on the terminal. These can be combined with thin clients,
which use up to 1/8 the amount of energy of a normal workstation, resulting in a decrease of
energy costs and consumption. There has been an increase in using terminal services with thin
clients to create virtual labs. Examples of terminal server software include Terminal Services for
Windows and the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) for the Linux operating system.

Power Management:
The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) an open industry standard, allows an
operating system to directly control the power saving aspects of its underlying hardware. This
allows a system to automatically turn off components such as monitors and hard drives after set
periods of inactivity.
 Prolong battery life for portable and embedded systems.
 Reduce cooling requirements.
 Reduce noise.
 Reduce operating costs for energy and cooling

Video Card:
 A fast GPU-largest power consumer
 No video card – use a shared terminal or desktop sharing software if display required.
 Use motherboard video output – typically low 3D performance and low power.
 Reuse an older video card that uses little power, many do not require heat sinks or fans.

Telecommuting:
Teleconferencing and telepresence technologies are often implemented in green computing
initiatives. The advantages are many;
 Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions related to travel and increased profit margins.
 Increased worker satisfaction and
 Increased profit margins as a result of lower overhead costs for office space, heat,
lighting, etc.

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Display:
CRT monitors typically use more power than LCD monitors. They also contain significant
amounts of lead. LCD monitors typically use a cold-cathode fluorescent bulb to provide light for
the display. Some newer displays use an array of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in place of the
fluorescent bulb, which reduces the amount of electricity used by the display. Fluorescent back-
lights also contain mercury, whereas LED back-lights do not.

Algorithmic efficiency:
 The Efficiency of algorithms is used to describe properties of an algorithm relating to
how much resources it consumes.
 Algorithms are the base of any computing system or electronic device, each and every
computer chip has a certain algorithm that allows it to complete its function.
 Even though these chips are small, they use a lot of power.

Power supply
Desktop computer power supplies (PSUs) are in general 70–75% efficient, dissipating the
remaining energy as heat. A certification program called 80 Plus certifies PSUs that are at least
80% efficient; typically, these models are drop-in replacements for older, less efficient PSUs of
the same form factor.

Materials recycling
Recycling computing equipment can keep harmful materials such as lead, mercury, and
hexavalent chromium out of landfills, and can also replace equipment that otherwise would need
to be manufactured, saving further energy and emissions. Computing supplies, such as printer
cartridges, paper, and batteries may be recycled as well. A drawback too many of these schemes
is that computers gathered through recycling drives are often shipped to developing countries
where environmental standards are less strict than in North America and Europe.

Storage
Smaller form factor (e.g., 2.5 inch) hard disk drives often consume less power per gigabyte than
physically larger drives. Unlike hard disk drives, solid-state drives store data in flash memory or
DRAM. With no moving parts, power consumption may be reduced somewhat for low-capacity
flash-based devices. The increase in online storage has increased power consumption.

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Advantages and disadvantages of Green IT

Advantages of Green IT
Reducing carbon and other GHG emissions

Proper asset disposal practices can eliminate toxic waste from entering landfill systems.
Recycling old equipment, when possible, decreases waste and can offer potential cost savings to
organizations that reuse IT assets.
Recycling Process
Green computing encourages recycling process by reusing and recycling electronic wastes. Most
parts of the computer are constructed using eco-friendly materials instead of plastic so that it can
have less environmental impacts. This makes all the electronic wastes to get separated
efficiently.
Increasing cooling efficiency in the data center
By leveraging local climates and using chilled loop and free cooling strategies, IT organizations
can decrease energy consumption through cooling practices.
Reducing energy costs
Cloud Computing can be used to reduce the energy costs. Green computing could save
substantial amount of energy; cloud computing involves replacing regular servers with the virtual
ones. The different areas where cloud computing finds application includes data storage,
networking, operating systems and software applications. The practice of switching off
computers at night helps in saving a considerable amount of energy.
Companies are saving tons of money
Green IT can save precious energy, time and money spent in manufacturing these electronic
items. Resources used and money spent in manufacturing an electronic item from scratch are far
greater than those needed for recycling it. Green IT measures can be used for improving the
algorithmic efficiency of computers. An efficient algorithm makes minimum use of resources.
Therefore, the productivity increases diversely and saving money.
Reducing the amount of space need for servers
Cloud computing involves replacing regular servers with the virtual ones. Therefore, cloud
computing can be used to reduce the need for servers. Virtualization is a large part of reducing
the amount of space need for servers.
Helping to minimize their environmental impact
Green IT is reducing the carbon and other GHG emissions. As it focuses on purchasing
computing equipment that is more energy efficient and environmentally friendly and includes
programs to extend equipment useful life, recycle and engage with suppliers that demonstrate a
commitment to reducing hazardous materials in their manufacturing, packaging and factory
waste management programs.

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Disadvantages of Green IT
Implementation Cost
Although green computing is cost effective in the long term, still many companies refrain from
switching to green computing due to its high upfront cost. When implementing a green
computing system, it takes lots of time and research, all that costs plenty of money. This makes
the technology more expensive than the average model. 

Maintenance
Besides implementation, the maintenance of a green computing system is considered to be highly
difficult that can be costly as well as time consuming. This is because the technology behind
green IT is entirely new and changing rapidly which makes the maintenance efforts eminent. 
Rapid technology change
With the rapid change in technology, world is innovating more consumer efficient product day
by day. Because of that whether the product is sufficient with the need; consumers are willing to
buy the same product with new features. So it causes in dump the previous version. It also affect
in the green IT concept. People are inventing new environmental friendly IT product, but with
the rapid technology change the product are not in use at the end. It increases the cost and
wastage.
Adaptation
The success of green computing does not solely depend on an individual person. It is based on
the effort and preferences of each staff members. They must adopt to this new system. If one the
members does not corporate to this, the implementation idea may go in vain. So just because of
those people, firms must decide migrating to green computing.

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Conclusion
The idea of Green IT is to support the idea of environment protection for upcoming generations
and to highlight the fact that the smart world will not exist without optimal usage of resources
and energy. New computing innovations and applications need to fulfill the green computing
requirements for the sustainable development of Information and communication technology
(ICT). Every ICT user has to understand and take preventive measure to use devices and services
very efficiently and contribute minimum to e-waste. In addition, regulatory agencies are making
positive moves to stem a rising tide of e-waste. Electronics manufacturers are doing their part
because of governmental regulations, and because it’s good business to do so. RoHS (Restriction
of Hazardous Substances), in particular, is a bright spot because of its global adoption.
Meanwhile, technology continues to yield solutions with greater energy and material efficiency.
Based on the growth of the industry, the power needs are increasing and thus there is a need to
monitor the power usage. As the power needs increase, more earth-friendly measures can to be
taken to help the environment. Also, the management and administrators need to discuss the
increasing needs of the data centers.

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References: -
1. http://ijarcs.info/index.php/Ijarcs/article/viewFile/2755/2743#:~:text=The%20term
%20Green%20computing%20came,bad%20effect%20on%20the%20environment.
2. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
259910853_Green_Information_Technology_Information_System_Education_Curriculu
m_Views
3. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/data-science-of-the-natural-environment/blogs/green-
computing-a-contribution-to-save-the-environment
4. https://www.slideshare.net/sheharaabeythunga/green-computing-71514216
5. https://www.ijert.org/research/approaches-in-green-computing-
IJERTCONV3IS28011.pdf
6. https://www.hitechwhizz.com/2020/12/7-advantages-and-disadvantages-drawbacks-
benefits-of-green-computing.html

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