U-M Planet Blue

• About Us
  • Our History
  • Our Partners
• Knowledge Saves Power
  • Best Practices
  • Myths vs. Facts
  • Environmental Calculators
  • Recycling e-Waste
  • Life Cycle of a Computer
• Take Charge of Your Power
  • Buy Smart
  • Manage Your Power
  • Eliminate Vampire Power
  • Measure Your Impact
  • Reconsider Printing
  • Recycling e-Waste
• Resources
  • Green IT Individual Survey
  • Green IT Certification Program at a Glance
  • Green IT Fact Sheet
  • Sustainable Computing Posters
  • Additional Resources
• IT Professionals
  • Desktop Computing Environment Best Practices
  • Data Center/Server Room Best Practices
  • Decrease Data Center Energy Usage
  • Buy Smart for IT Pros
  • Environmental Calculators
  • Reuse and Recycle E-Waste
• Home

Our History

In the beginning...

In 2007, U-M accepted an invitation from Larry Page, Google co-founder and U-M alumnus, to join a new program called the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. This initiative had the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and save energy consumed by computing. The two-pronged approach encouraged use of power management settings on computers and monitors, and setting energy efficiency targets for computers, servers and components. U-M took the challenge to heart and extended it to all aspects of the entire computer lifecycle.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative @ U-M included the following projects, the results of many of these you will find on this website:

• Workstation Best Practices: established a set of best practices for desktop computing.
• Server Room/Data Center Best Practices: made recommendations of implementable changes to server rooms and data centers for better energy efficiency.
• Computer Power and Patch Management Service: a service provided centrally at no cost to campus that allowed IT staff to manage power settings on their unit's computers.
• Corporate Sponsors Program: solicited donations from computing vendors to provide funding for sustainable computing initiatives on campus.
• Unit Funding: provided small grants to campus units to provide funding for green IT initiatives outside of their departmental budgets.
• Power Down for the Planet: a challenge to university students to pledge to use power management settings.
• Lecture Series: sponsored campus lectures on the topic of sustainable computing.
• Support Planet Blue: participated in Planet Blue Open House and other campus events, such as EarthFest.
• eWaste Recycling: partnered with vendors and the Ann Arbor Public Schools to hold a community electronic waste recycling event in the spring. This event has been taken up by the Office of Campus Sustainability and still held every spring.
• Green IT Achievement Program: a program that encouraged and recognized units to deploy best practices in their units, subsequently folded into the Sustainable Workplace Certification Program.
• Green IT Symposium: a one-day symposium with sessions by vendors and campus IT staff providing information and showcasing progress toward sustainable computing. These sessions are available for you to explore.

U-M Green IT Program Grows to Become the Sustainable Workplace Certification Program

The Green IT Certification Program designed by the University of Michigan Sustainable Computing group rewarded units for their efforts in making IT more environmentally "green." The program encouraged green IT best practices and engaged and recognized units that demonstrated environmental stewardship through sustainable IT practices.

The program was implemented as the "Green IT Achievement Program" at the University of Michigan beginning in 2007. Since that time, 42 campus units have been certified, with 16 reaching the highest level, and several moving from lower to higher levels of certification as they implemented more sustainable practices.

In 2012, the successful U-M Green IT program was rolled into an expanded campus-wide program called the Sustainable Workplace Certification Program through the Office of Campus Sustainability, which was a great next step towards overall workplace sustainability. U-M staff and faculty are encouraged to join this new program and promote sustainable behavior across campus.

Some of Our Past Efforts

Power Management

Forty-five campus units at U-M signed on to reduce the power consumption of their desktop computers with the Computer Power and Patch Management (CPPM) service. As MiWorkspace took on the role of managing workstation power and patches, this service entered a phased retirement.

Controlling Campus Energy Consumption via the IP Network: A Feasibility Study for Achieving Energy Efficiency with Cisco EnergyWise

What is the potential for network-based technologies to collect, aggregate and communicate building energy data to enable informed, coordinated management by key decision makers?

This presentation sets out to answer the question and explores energy management technologies, surveys energy management practices at Universities and goes in depth with a University of Michigan case study. A 2011 SNRE Master's Project by Bryan Hogle, Hunt Briggs, Tim Haines and Sarah Howie

Implementing Power Save Settings at MAIS

The former Michigan Administrative Information Systems (now part of Information and Technology Services (ITS)) undertook implementation of the Sustainable Computing best practices. This Workstation Best Practice Case Study (2009) documents some of the challenges they encountered and the solutions they identified.

Volunteers

Since 2007 volunteers from over 25 units have contributed to the sustainable computing initiative, including:

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