Green Academic IT Potential

With digitalization, the potential savings from more efficient processes are offset by a sharp increase in energy and resource consumption due to the production and operation of IT infrastructures. In the GAIT project, we are investigating how we can make IT at universities more sustainable. To this end, we are developing corresponding key performance indicator systems, assessing the status quo and deriving measures for our own and other universities in Baden-Württemberg.

Funding Institution

Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector

Project Duration

September 2021 – August 2024

Project Leads

Prof. Dr. Niklas Hartmann (INES), Prof. Dr. Jan Münchenberg (IMLA), Prof. Dr. Michael Schmidt (INES)

Departments Involved

Elektrotechnik, Medizintechnik und Informatik (EMI), Maschinenbau und Verfahrenstechnik (M+V)

Research Institutes Involved

Institut für nachhaltige Energiesysteme (INES), Institute for Machine Learning and Analytics (IMLA)

External Partners

Hochschule Biberach

More Information

The potential savings of digitization from more efficient processes are offset by a sharp increase in energy and resource consumption due to the production and operation of IT infrastructures. Consequently, measures to increase the sustainability of IT infrastructures are becoming more important. The Baden-Württemberg state government is taking this into account with its "State Strategy Green IT 2020 in Public Administration Baden-Württemberg" and by establishing a Green IT Competence Center. To make concrete, fact-based decisions in line with the strategy, it must be possible to quantitatively assess the potential for success of measures in advance and to measure the actual success after implementation. This requires a system of indicators that can evaluate the sustainability of IT infrastructures in the most comprehensive way possible.

In the GAIT project, a sustainability indicator system will be developed and a baseline established for initially two universities of applied sciences (HAW) as pilot universities and, in the further course of the project, for two additional HAW. This will be followed by a quantitative assessment of the improvement potential of selected concrete green IT measures. The findings will then be transferred to all HAW in the course of a scenario analysis to arrive at an estimate of the overall potential.