Developing and justifying energy conservation measures: Green IT under construction

In order to achieve the large-scale reductions in carbon emissions necessary to reduce the impact of climate change, fundamental technological changes will be required. In this regard, Green IT and IS may be able to play a pivotal role; however, such initiatives require new skills of IS leaders that are not sufficiently addressed in current university programs. In the process of developing practical and relatively simple energy conservation measures (ECMs) for organizations, we identify three critical challenges that organizations will face as they engage in this process: dealing with different perspectives, setting the boundaries and context of the ECM, and researching information. Based on this experience we propose that multi-disciplinary perspectives to decision-making and experiential learning be incorporated into the Green IT/IS curriculum.