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Is Green the New Gold for Education Marketers?

By: David Nagel

8/19/2008

launched just such a consulting service for education institutions back in June.)

There's also the concerted effort on the part of Google and Microsoft to move services onto the cloud--services like e-mail, storage, collaborative technologies, and support--to make more efficient use of centralized resources. As Microsoft's Salcito put it, doing this "overall makes the computing landscape much more efficient for Microsoft to house servers centrally [and] use capacity across the servers as opposed to having every institution around the country duplicate much of the same services with not only the people costs but also the physical infrastructure to support those environments." Such efforts (like Google's Apps for Edu and Microsoft's Live@Edu) have also spawned minor channel ecosystems, as partner firms move in to provide migration, consulting, and integration services.

Significantly, the money will soon be there to fund green-focused technology initiatives on college and university campuses in the form of HESA--the Higher Education Sustainability Act, which was signed into law last week as part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008. HESA established competitive grants for programs designed to help campuses become more energy-efficient. The grants, called "University Sustainability Grants Program" and administered through the United States Department of Education, are applicable at both the curriculum level and the institutional level--in other words, for providing environmental education to students and for putting more environmentally sound practices into action.

Specifics of the grants have not yet been established, but they will provide universities with funding for green purchasing, energy management, green building, staff training, and other sustainability-focused programs and initiatives. And the program could impact a significant number of institutions. According to a recent News Times article, about 500 higher education institutions in the United States have green programs in place. The new grants could fund up to an additional 200 programs, for an instant 40 percent boost.


About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.

Have any additional questions? Want to share your story? Want to pass along a news tip? Contact Dave Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.