A Green ICT Maturity Model for Higher Education.

Albert Hankel
TrackTrack 1 -- Lecture Hall X on the First Floor
DescriptionSURFnet has developed the SURF Green ICT Maturity Model (SGIMM). Using this maturity model higher education institutions and NRENs are able to do a self-assessment on Green ICT. This should enable positive gains in efficiency using ICT equipment as well as using the same ICT resources to lower environmental impacts of other processes. An obvious example of the latter is a videoconferencing service, which does increase the footprint of ICT, but has a much higher effect through reducing travelling.

The SGIMM is designed to be practical and easy to use. Higher education institutions can use it by letting a multi competency panel of users score roughly twenty Green ICT attributes on maturity and discuss these scores in a joint evaluation session. With the scores and the discussion, next steps to increase maturity and performance for the organization are easily identified.

While the end results of a maturity scan are an analysis of the status quo of the organization, they should facilitate an action plan for improvements. After executing these actions, another maturity scan can be carried out to re-evaluate the organization and measure the effects of the actions taken in the period between. This creates a continuous cycle of improvement.

An important aspect of using the SGIMM as a benchmark is that it creates a common language amongst higher education institutions. While scores cannot be quantitatively compared, it is possible to identify well-scoring institutions on specific attributes and let them share their experiences as best practices.

Now that SURFnet have translated the SGIMM to English, next steps are to promote international use of the model and develop and disseminate it further through the GEANT Environmental Team. In this presentation, we will demonstrate the SGIMM and the first experiences with it in the Dutch higher education community.

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