=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_15
|storemode=property
|title=ICT Sustainability from Day One: Introducing New Computer Science Students at a UK University to Sustainability
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_15.pdf
|volume=Vol-2382
|authors=Ian Brooks
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ict4s/Brooks19
}}
==ICT Sustainability from Day One: Introducing New Computer Science Students at a UK University to Sustainability==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2382/ICT4S2019_paper_15.pdf
ICT Sustainability from Day One.
Introducing new Computer Science students at a UK University to Sustainability.
Ian Brooks
Software Engineering Research Group
University of the West of England
Bristol, United Kingdom
Ian.Brooks@uwe.ac.uk
Abstract— As ICT impacts dramatically on the sustainability of (GHG) emissions [4] [5]. However, ICT solutions also have
the world and of individuals, both positive and negative, there is the potential to enable GHG reductions in a variety of applica-
an urgent need to educate Computer Science students about Sus- tions across the economy [6].
tainability. This paper assesses the experience of a project to In the United Kingdom, many students arriving at Universi-
introduce new University students in a Computer Science de-
partment to concepts of sustainability. It describes the team pro-
ty for their first year of undergraduate CS courses have a low
ject approach used during the first few weeks of a student’s time awareness of the impacts of ICT on sustainability – negative or
at the University of the West of England and the standard tem- positive [7]. These are issues that they will face very directly
plate for sustainable technology proposals. It reviews the learning in the course of their professional careers, so there is a respon-
from five years of the programme and engagement of over 250 sibility on Computer Science (CS) departments to ensure these
students. students have opportunities to engage with and learn about
sustainability.
The programme has received positive student feedback and This paper explores the policy and curriculum context for
broadened the sustainability awareness of students. It has be-
sustainability in CS courses. It also describes the process and
come an opportunity to introduce all new students in the depart-
ment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The experience of introducing new CS students to sustainability in a
programme has shown reduced levels of student engagement in project which has been running at the University of the West of
recent years and the paper explores some of the reasons for this. England Bristol (UWE) for five years. UWE has a strong
Overall, the programme makes a positive contribution to commitment to Education for Sustainable Development [8] [9]
achievement of the University’s sustainability policy and supports [10] and the Induction project is just one of a range of interven-
the requirements of the relevant professional body and the UK tions to engage CS students with sustainability.
Quality Assurance Agency.)
II. POLICY AND CURRICULUM CONTEXT
Index Terms—ICT4S, Sustainability, Computer Science,
Education for Sustainable Development, ESD, SDG A. Definitions of Sustainability
1) Sustainability: a contested word in ICT
I. INTRODUCTION The very term ‘sustainability’ is a contested word in the
There is an urgent global problem with the unsustainable ICT context. Some uses of ‘sustainability’ in computing jour-
burden that our economies and lifestyles place upon the planet. nals refer to ICT providing a sustainable competitive advantage
This existential crisis is at its most threatening in the form of for an organisation. Sustainability is understood as relating to
climate change where the difference between an average of 1.5 the provision of the required technology platforms and having
degree C warming and 2 degree C might increase “the number the staff with the right skills to develop and maintain applica-
of people both exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible tions [11] [12].
to poverty by up to several hundred million by 2050 (medium Increasingly papers in this field are using the term ‘sustain-
confidence)” [1, p. 11]. There are other planetary limits where ability’ to refer to broader concepts of environmental, social
we have already exceeded safe thresholds and are at risk of and economic sustainability in the wider economy and ecosys-
exceeding others [2]. In addition to these environmental tem. There is a need for research of this change in usage This
threats, society also faces social and economic pressures from is consistent with the common usage of sustainability as a syn-
unsustainable development. Whilst political and practical re- onym for sustainable development. The most widely cited def-
sponses to these threats are frustratingly slow, there is some inition of sustainable development is development which
reason for hope in the form of the United Nations Sustainable “meets the needs of the present without compromising the abil-
Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by 193 countries in Sep- ity of future generations to meet their own needs” [13, Sec.
tember 2015 [3]. These 17 goals set out a vision of the sustain- Summary para 27].
able world we want by 2030.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are a 2) Sustainable Development
documented contributor to unsustainable development, for in- In September 2015, the 193 countries in the United Nations
stance, responsible for roughly 2-4% of global Greenhouse Gas adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) [3].
These 17 global goals are shown in figure 1. The goals consist basic approach to estimating the drivers and impacts, potential-
of 169 specific targets to be achieved by 2030 or earlier. The ly with wide, but unspecified, uncertainty. More recently,
17 SDGs are quite generic and it is at the level of the targets Bieser and Hilty, published a systematic literature review of the
that practical action can be mobilised and achievement meas- methods used in studies estimating the indirect environmental
ured. effects of ICT systems e.g. reduction in transportation GHG
emissions. They identify 15 different methods in 54 studies
[19]. These vary in sophistication and focus. Most of the stud-
ies focus on changes to the processes of production and fail to
account for potential changes in consumption arising from the
ICT implementation. Hence these studies omit a potentially
significant driver of environmental impact and only partially
address the agenda of SDG12 - Responsible Consumption and
Production.
Other global bodies have also highlighted the sustainability
benefits that ICT can deliver [20]. Many global ICT industry
companies have had long running campaigns on this theme
with straplines such as IBM ‘Smarter Planet’, Philips ‘Better
Me, Better World ’, Huawei ‘Green World’, SONY ‘Road To
Fig. 1. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals [3] Zero’, O2 ‘Think Big’ and CISCO ‘EnergyWise’. These or-
ganisations see the story of ICT and sustainability as a business
An example of one of the goals is SDG4 “Ensure inclusive opportunity and source of positive corporate reputation. Glob-
and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning ally, the Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector is
opportunities for all” [3, p. 14] and an example of a target amongst the top five sectors for rates of corporate responsibil-
within this is SDG4.7 “By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire ity (CR) reporting [21].
the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable devel- It has been left mostly to NGOs to point out the negative
opment, including, among others, through education for sus- sustainability impacts of ICT including the dirty cloud cam-
tainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, paign of Greenpeace [22] and the working conditions cam-
gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non- paigns of China Labor Watch [23] and GoodElectronics [24].
violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversi- There is also an emerging body of academic analysis of the
ty and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development” [3, impact of ICT systems on the SDGs in specific sectors e.g.
p. 17]. This places a clear responsibility on the education sec- Cancer Care Informatics [25].
tor to deliver achievement of this target through Education for The reality of ICT impacts on sustainability mean that in-
Sustainable Development (ESD). dustry employers are looking for staff with an understanding of
3) Sustainability and the Global ICT Industry sustainability. This is consistent with reports anticipating
Significant sections of the ICT industry have recognised the growth of ‘Green Jobs’ [26]. This is an industry pull factor
responsibility of the industry for sustainability and the market shaping expectations of sustainability content in CS courses.
opportunity for ICT solutions delivering sustainability benefits.
B. Teaching Sustainability
The Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) [14] is a case in
point. Formed in 2001 it is an industry funded body which has 1) Sustainability in CS Curricula – United Kingdom.
campaigned to promote the benefits the ICT industry can deliv- In the United Kingdom, standards for Higher Education
er towards sustainability. Their most high-profile reports have courses are set and monitored by the Quality Assurance Agen-
been Smart 2020 [15], Smarter 2020 [16] and Smarter 2030 cy for Higher Education (QAA). The QAA publish Subject
[17] which describe and estimate the sustainability benefits Benchmark statements for specific course domains which de-
from ICT implementation. scribe “what graduates might reasonably be expected to know,
GeSI’s website lists over 50 members and partners but the do and understand at the end of their studies” [27, p. 1]. So a
terms of membership make it clear that members are compa- key question when designing delivery of ESD in a CS course is
nies in the communication network industry. Whilst GeSI what is required by the Computing Subject Benchmark State-
states that it is a source of impartial information, it is funded by ment [28].
ICT industry members with membership fees of 30,000 USD There is very little explicit content on sustainability in the
per year [18]. 20 page QAA Computing Subject Benchmark Statement. It
The Smarter 20nn series of reports have recognised the states that Computing graduates “create social and economic
GHG impact of ICT use with estimates ranging initially from value by building secure, reliable and usable systems” [28, p.
2.7% of global emissions by 2020 [15] later reducing to 1.97% 7] completely omitting any reference to environmental value.
by 2030 [17]. However, the latest report claims that “ICT solu- The document groups the skills expected of Computing gradu-
tions can help cut 9.7 times more CO2e than they emit” [17, p. ates under three headings: computing-related cognitive skills,
18]. This claim is based upon the impact modelling work car- computing-related practical skills, and generic skills for em-
ried out by Accenture for the report. Their model uses a rather ployability.
Computing-related cognitive skills include “recognise the tainable development within their curricula” [29, p. 2]. The
professional, economic, social, environmental, moral and ethi- guidance includes a set of 38 graduate outcomes expected from
cal issues involved in the sustainable exploitation of computer ESD (pages 10 -12). CS course designers should be encour-
technology and be guided by the adoption of appropriate pro- aged to check that their programmes will give students the op-
fessional, ethical and legal practices” [28, p. 10]. ‘Recognise’ portunities to achieve these outcomes.
and ‘be guided by’ are surprisingly weak statements compared In the United Kingdom, some CS courses are also accredit-
to the ‘use’, ‘deploy’ and ‘analyse’ written in some of the other ed towards membership of the professional body known as
cognitive skills statements. BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT. The BCS publish a 43
Computing-related practical skills include “the ability to page document of Guidelines on Course Accreditation [30]. It
recognise any risks and safety aspects that may be involved in complements and refers to the QAA Computing Subject
the deployment of computing systems” and “The ability to Benchmark Standard. The Guidelines are also weak on sus-
evaluate systems in terms of quality attributes and possible tainability. There is a statement that “Programmes seeking
trade-offs presented within the given problem” [28, p. 10]. If accreditation must cover and assess the legal, social, ethical,
these are well-taught, they will encompass sustainability risks and professional issues (LSEPIs) relating to computing” [30, p.
and trade-offs. However, the phrase ‘within the given problem’ 16]. “Environmental and sustainability aspects” only merit
is troubling as many sustainability impacts occur outside of the inclusion as one bullet point in a list of ten examples of
narrowly defined scope of an application. LSEPIs. In the whole document, of six references to ‘environ-
The last item on the list of generic skills for employability ment’ only this one has the ecological meaning. The other ref-
does include the broader statement “Sustainability: recognising erences are to technical computing contexts. Somewhat more
factors in environmental and societal contexts relating to the encouraging is that the guidance that LSEPIs "should be specif-
opportunities and challenges created by computing systems ically detailed in the syllabus" [30, p. 17], not left to discretion
across a range of human activities” [28, p. 11]. Once again, or optional modules.
this is a weak ‘recognising’ when other skills include ‘con- Academics in Higher Education cannot assume that stu-
struct’, ‘work unsupervised’ or ‘make best use of’. dents will come with an awareness of sustainability from pri-
There is a later blanket statement that student learning mary or secondary schooling in the UK. UNESCO’s report on
should be in “the context of social, ethical, legal, professional, ESD in the UK notes that “Since the election in 2010, the gov-
environmental and economic factors relevant to Computing” ernment emphasis on sustainable development has been re-
[28, p. 12] but this is also a fairly nebulous requirement. duced, and climate change is not the strong driver it was” [31,
The Subject Benchmark Statement divides Computing into p. 17]. The Environmental Association of Universities and
“Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engi- Colleges was amongst many signatories of a letter calling on
neering, Information Technology, and Information Systems”. the Secretary of State for Education to “keep sustainability in
In the page of definitions of these disciplines, only Information the National Curriculum objectives” [32] in response to a con-
Systems contains the comment ”including societal and envi- sultation questioning its status. A survey of first year under-
ronmental issues” [28, p. 8]. By implication societal and envi- graduate Computing students showed that 54% of the respond-
ronmental issues are not included in the other four disciplines. ents did not believe that their subject had "any potential impact
On balance the QAA requirements regarding sustainability to any area of sustainable development - environmental, social
are minor and weak in comparison to other content. However, or other" [7].
the statement does note that for a prescriptive body of 2) Sustainability in CS Curricula – Global.
knowledge reference should be made to the Association of The global statement of curricula for CS is published by a
Computing Machinery (ACM) curricula. This ACM curricula joint task force of the ACM and IEEE. The latest version is 518
will be reviewed for sustainability content in a subsequent sec- pages [33] and once again is disappointingly light on sustaina-
tion of this paper. bility. The body of knowledge does contain an attribute
It is surprising that the Subject Benchmark Statement is “SP/Sustainability” within the Knowledge Area “SP - Social
weak on sustainability, given that the QAA together with the Issues and Professional Practice” [33, p. 203]. This merits just
HEA had two years earlier published “Education for sustaina- one hour of Core-Tier 1 time and one hour of Core-Tier 2 time.
ble development: Guidance for UK higher education providers” Out of a combined total of 308 hours this demonstrates very
[29]. The document is “intended to be relevant to educators in little regard for sustainability.
all disciplines wishing to embed or include learning about sus-
Fig. 2. Programme SDG map [36, p36]
Another global guide to which CS course designers may re- commitment, all departments are mapping their programmes of
fer is the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) study to identify their coverage of the UN SDGs. An SDG map
which is now in version 7 [34]. This does have a skill SUST for one of the programmes in the Department of Computer
defined as "The provision of advice, assistance and leadership Science and Creative Technologies is shown in figure 2 [36, p.
to enable the organisation to minimise negative environmental 36]. UWE Bristol's five stated Graduate Attributes [37], col-
impact" [34, p. 46]. Note that this is defined entirely in nega- lectively describe a sustainability literate graduate. Therefore
tive terms. There is no mention of the positive environmental there is an emphasis on activities for students to develop these
impacts and the statement is also weak on social aspects of attributes, whether in formal teaching or extra-curricular oppor-
sustainability. The SUST skills are only prescribed at levels 4, tunities.
5 and 6 so are not expected of lower level staff. The word ‘sus- 4) Teaching Approaches for ESD in CS
tainability’ is used 25 times in the 134 page document but most Given the strong Institutional encouragement for ESD but
uses imply the meaning of maintainability of systems. weak subject curricula, it is useful to review the literature on
Overall, the United Kingdom and Global curricula for ESD teaching approaches for CS. Searches were carried out
Computing offer little support or weight to coverage of sustain- using the terms (sustainability AND computer science AND
ability in courses offered by CS departments. This is surprising Teaching) and separately (ESD AND computer science) using
given the emphasis placed on sustainability by ICT industry the SUMMON library search. The terms were narrow to max-
bodies and employers. imize relevance. SUMMON was used because it offers wide
3) Education for Sustainable Development – Institution literature coverage and fewer spurious results than Google
Context Scholar [25].
Although the National and Global CS curricula offer little Recognition of employability as a key driver for teaching
encouragement to the Department of Computer Science and sustainability to CS students was reported by Gordon et al [38]
Creative Technologies, there is strong encouragement towards with a key choice whether to embed the topic across the CS
ESD at an Institution level from UWE Bristol. This includes a programme or segregate it to a separate taught component.
dedicated staff lead, a cross university knowledge exchange The segregated approach was described in the design of a
group, published ESD policies, annual reports and a parallel Green Computing module at RMIT University [39] and Uni-
commitment from the Students' Union [8]. The institutional versity of Coventry [40]. Hamilton discusses the design of a
context is more fully described in Longhurst et al (2015) and teaching module specifically covering Green Computing in her
Gough and Longhurst (2018). UWE Bristol has a stated vision brief paper on "Learning and Teaching Computing Sustainabil-
for ESD that "By 2020, all staff and students will be familiar ity". This includes students using single board computers to
with the UN SDGs and have an awareness of their relevance to gather data on 'Green Variables" such as "power usage for
the individual’s own discipline." [35, p. 8]. As part of this lighting and computers, air quality, actual paper usage" [39, p.
338]. Payne describes a group-work activity for second year made a decision to add sustainability content to the Induction
Computing students to recommend sustainability tips for a fic- week in order to raise the sustainability awareness amongst the
tional IT organisation. The approach adopted by Coventry Uni- whole cohort of new students. A Sustainable Technology Pro-
versity at that stage was to include sustainability as a separate posal Induction Project was designed for its first run in Sep-
work package rather than embedded throughout the Computing tember 2013. It was led and delivered by Ian Brooks who was
curriculum. It was noted that this approach experienced poor employed by UWE Bristol on an Environmental Innovation
student engagement. support programme. He had previously worked on Green IT
The embedded strategy is discussed in approaches to incor- for IBM including as IBM’s Sustainability Leader on their IT
porate Sustainable ICT topics in the Innovation and Technolo- outsourcing programme at Defra (UK Department for Envi-
gy Management MSc at Bath University [41]. In this paper, ronment, Food and Rural Affairs). Martin Serpell, an estab-
Cayzer emphasizes an approach which focusses on students lished Senior Lecturer in CSCT jointly authored and delivered
responding to the constraints which sustainability will place on the talks.
their future projects such as legislative drivers and energy effi- The project included a one hour talk on the sustainability
ciency targets, rather than debating the science of climate impacts and benefits of ICT [45] for new CS students in Induc-
change. tion week (w/c 16 Sep 2013) and a 20 minute version for
In their study of 80 ICT program students at the University Games Technology and Music Technology students. This talk
of Zurich (UZH) and KTH Stockholm (KTH) who covered a introduced the optional team competition and the process for
sustainable development topic in their dissertation, Hilty and participating. It was made clear that the competition was volun-
Huber found a set of five teaching themes which most motivat- tary, did not have a prize and did not contribute any marks to-
ed the students wards the student’s course. There were follow up sessions with
• “A conceptual framework of positive and negative individual degree programmes to encourage teams to partici-
impacts of ICT on SD. pate and to answer questions about the competition.
• Real-life reports on the recycling of ICT hardware, The competition was a team project for groups of four stu-
with a focus on informal recycling in developing dents to identify a sustainability problem and propose a tech-
countries. nology solution to deliver sustainability benefits. A simple five
• Real-life reports on using ICT to reduce green- slide PowerPoint template for submission of the team proposal
house gas emissions, for example, by videoconfer- was provided [46] as shown in Appendix 1. Deadline for sub-
encing. mission was 30 Sep 2013 using online submission through the
• Statistical data on the total material demand of Blackboard VLE. The submissions were scored by three sus-
modern economies. tainability professionals including the chair of the BCS Green
• Historical evidence for rebound effects" [42, p. IT Specialist Group. The winning team were offered support
651] time for development of their idea.
Extra-mural approaches can also make a significant contri- This content and contact time met the Sustainability re-
bution to students’ appreciation of sustainability. This is re- quirements of the QAA Computing Subject Benchmark State-
ported within the context of Bristol's year as European Green ment, the ACM Computing Curricula and the Skills Frame-
Capital, during which the two Universities in Bristol supported work for the Information Age 7. The content partially met the
engagement of students with the city community through vol- requirements of the BCS Accreditation Guidelines though not
unteering, placements / internships and projects [43] the requirement of the LSEPIs to be explicit in the syllabus as
there is no module specification for this induction activity.
C. Sustainable Technology Proposal Induction Project 36 teams submitted proposals with a combined total of 129
The Department of Computer Science and Creative Tech- students participating. The winning team proposed a booking
nologies (CSCT) at UWE Bristol has included sustainability app for students to share taxis returning from the city centre to
content in its programmes for many years. Most notably in the campus, with anticipated reductions in GHG and monetary
Community Action and Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) pro- savings for students.
jects where final year undergraduate students work in teams to The winning student team were provided mentoring time
deliver digital technology projects for community organisations over the course of the year and enrolled in the UWE Bristol
[44]. There are good examples of embedding sustainability Entrepreneurship support programme. They later won a small
throughout the curriculum such as using local air quality da- start-up support grant from UWE Bristol to further develop
tasets in coursework for data handling topics. The department their proposal.
has mapped one of its programmes, BSc Information Technol- Given the high level of student engagement on this optional
ogy Management for Business, towards the SDGs and shown project and the positive informal feedback, CSCT decided to
good levels of coverage across the programme [36, p. 36] as repeat the Sustainable Technology Proposal Induction Project
shown in Appendix 2. in subsequent years.
However, there was not a taught component which explicit-
ly introduced concepts of sustainability. So in 2013 CSCT
In 2014 and 2015 the same process was followed with the
addition of a £100 prize of Amazon vouchers to be shared Primary SDG of Proposal
amongst the winning team. Assessment was completed by one 40
member of staff. In 2014, 22 teams with a combined total of 35
70 students participated. In 2015, 13 teams with 46 students.
30
In 2016 session delivery was by one member of staff only
Number of Proposals
and with no follow up sessions taken up by individual pro-
25
grammes. Content on the SDGs was added to the presentation 20
of IT
and the students asked to identify the SDGs which benefitted 15 by IT
from their proposal. 3 teams with 11 students submitted pro- 10
posals. There was some student feedback that the deadline for 5
submission was too short. 0
In 2017 in response to feedback, the submission deadline 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
SDG number
was set as 20th October. 3 teams with a total of 8 students
submitted proposals. Fig. 4 Target of Proposal
A core set of data about the content and nature of each
submission in each of the years was kept by the project leader
and analysed as the basis for this research. ble, sustainable and modern energy for all” [3]. SDG target 7.3
relates to energy efficiency improvement and most of the im-
D. Discussion of Five Years’ Experience provements proposed to the sustainability of IT are energy effi-
The most striking feature in the data from the five years’ ciency improvements.
experience is the notable drop in the number of students partic- In 2018, students from each year group were asked to pro-
ipating in later years as shown in figure 3. There is no defini- vide written feedback on their experience of the Sustainable
tive data as to the reason for this reduction and further research Technology Proposal Induction Project. The following themes
is needed to explain it. Contributory factors are likely to in-
clude: no program-specific follow up sessions in 2016 which
had supported the development of teams and expectation of
participation; student perceptions of 17 SDGs as complex; and
Introduction of a prize in 2014 altering the student motivation.
Fig. 5 Primary SDG of Proposal
emerged from their responses.
Fig. 3. Student Participation by Year Knowledge of Sustainability and Technology. Students
valued the opportunity to learn and to research the topic of sus-
The student proposals were categorised as to whether they tainability and technology. One student observed that the pro-
were an improvement to the sustainability of IT, e.g. Data Cen- ject “highlighted just how bad the current situation is in some
tre efficiency, or improvement to sustainability delivered by IT, areas, something which I feel all IT students and practitioners
e.g. transport GHG reduction. The analysis is shown in fig. 4. need to be aware of” [47]
The proposals were also categorised by the SDG which was Sustainability content in the rest of the course. Students
the primary beneficiary of the technology proposal. For 2016 from 2013-16 noted that they did not identify much sustainabil-
and 2017 this was identified by the student team. For previous ity content elsewhere in their course. However, this has clearly
years the author has reviewed the proposal in the light of the been an area of improvement as a student from 2016 stated that
SDGs which were agreed in September 2015. The analysis is sustainability was “something that was later covered in multi-
shown in figure 5. 47% of the proposals delivered benefits ple modules (as it is a growing area of both interest and con-
primarily relating to SDG 7 “Ensure access to affordable, relia- cern)” [47]
The student feedback also highlighted a number of signifi- Universities which have a strong commitment to Education
cant co-benefits of the project. for Sustainable Development, have choices to make about em-
• Career development. The skills and experience bedding Sustainability throughout the CS syllabus or providing
developed in the proposal process served them a standalone component.
well for establishing their early career An ICT Sustainability project as described in this paper can
• Lasting relationships. Many students observed that make a valuable standalone contribution to raising the aware-
the team work and friendships built continued ness of each new CS cohort, and allow time to embed Sustain-
through their university time and beyond. ability systematically throughout the course.
• Mentoring and opportunities. The process of re-
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Appendix 1: Sustainable Tech Project Proposal format
Appendix 2: Course SDG Map