Government entities have an important role to play in encouraging sustainable ICT, but they need to implement it as well. This is leadership by example. The tag at the top of this post - government - helps you easily locate posts containing opportunities for and applications of Green ICT in government operations. (Green ICT in public education is found through the education tag.)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) video, below, offers the (undated) statistic that "up to 3% of all [US] electricity powers data centers." The video does not say if the featured data center is a DOE facility.

The US Government Services Administration (GSA) has issued "…guidelines banning all federal agencies from disposing of electronic waste in landfills…Under the new policy, reusing electronics remains the priority. Asset managers will first offer these products for reuse by other agencies. Then they will seek to donate them to schools, non-profits, and local governments or offer them for sale. For non-functioning items that must be disposed of, federal agencies agencies are now banned from sending these materials to landfills or incinerators; instead, they will recycle them with third-party certified e-waste recyclers. "

Legacy apps and their environments can be barrier to virtualization and other forms of consolidation. A MeriTalk survey sponsored by Jupiter Networks reveals that "…60 percent of Federal data centers [are] running 20 or more operating systems and 48 percent [are] using 20 or more management software applications." The report concludes that "…this growing IT complexity could jeopardize the scale and speed of budget savings" associated with the Federal data center consolidation effort described below.

A report from the Federal CIO says that cloud computing could save the US Government $60 billion per year, but ignores potential sustainability benefits like lower energy consumption or reduced CO2e emissions.

A US Government blogger states, "Between 1998 and 2010, the Federal government quadrupled the number of data centers we operate. Moreover, on average these centers have been using only 27 percent of their computer power even though taxpayers are footing the bill for the entire infrastructure, real estate and energy costs." The government's goal is to have shut down 800 data centers by the end of 2015; 81 are already closed. The current administration is to be commended for revealing the embarrassing statistic (transparency) and taking action to remedy the situation.