An empirical investigation into Green IT practices in the North West Provincial Government
Abstract
Climate change has been a topic for discussion in the IT industry. The IT (information
technology) sector has been regarded as one of the contributing sectors towards
climate change due to carbon emissions from IT equipment such as computers and
servers. Environmental concerns are gaining incremental attention from organisations
across the globe. Green IT is seen as part of the solution to this problem and has been
defined and discussed by many researchers. The purpose of this study was to
investigate Green IT practices that have been adopted in the NWPG (North West
Provincial Government). The study focused on the three departments which fall under
one central IT section in the department of the provincial treasury. A quantitative study
was conducted in Mafikeng and questionnaires were distributed to collect the data and
it was found that although end-users in the government sector are aware of Green IT,
many still needed a lot of training on Green IT. The research concludes by suggesting
strategies that might be adopted to improve IT use in the government sector.