An Investigation of Factors that Inform Green IT Practices in the North West Provincial Government of South Africa

The effects of global climate change have been a major topic of discussion in the Information Technology (IT) industry in recent times. The IT sector has been regarded as one of the sectors contributing significantly towards climate change. This is due to the negative effects associated with the generation of heat and carbon emissions from IT equipment such as computers and servers. Environmental issues especially the reduction of global warming is gaining a lot of attention from organisations across the globe. Therefore, Greening the IT environment is seen as part of the solution to addressing this problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that inform Green IT practices in the North West Provincial Government (NWPG). The study focused on three departments which fall under the IT section of the Department of North West Provincial Treasury. The study followed a quantitative descriptive type of research study, where questionnaires were used to collect the data. The research results indicate that while there is an appreciation of the importance of bringing in Green IT practices in the government sector, the organization, suppliers, employees and regulations should synergically be organized to reap the benefits of Green IT. For example, less use of printing power, introduction of power management systems, adopting Green IT infrastructure and formulating regulatory green environmental policies, their use and subsequent monitoring can heavily improve their adoption of Green IT practices. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n20p16