An Assessment of Green Computing Awareness and Adoption in Higher Education Institutions in Zambia: A Case of ZCAS

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Introduction
According to most research findings, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have a significant role in national development (Harindranath & Sein, 2007). Furthermore, ICTs, both traditional media and the new ICTs continue to play a major role in providing access to information that is relevant in almost all the major sectors of the developing countries (Kasigwa et al., 2005). Zambia being a developing country and with its bid to fulfil the (Sustainable Development Goals) such as the reduction of poverty (Delponte et al., 2015), launched the National ICT policy with the aim to embrace ICTs that are deemed to be enablers for social and economic development. The launch of the National ICT Policy of 2005 has seen the growth of use of ICTs even in households as noted in the ZICTA ICT shown in Figure 1 (ZICTA, 2014).

Figure 1. Distribution of Household with Access to ICT Devices by Province
This increase in the use of ICTs in the urban areas means that there is equally an increase in carbon emissions as demonstrated in the World Bank Report on CO2 emissions in Zambia shown in Figure 2 below (Trading_Economics, 2018).

Figure 2. Zambia-CO2 Emissions (kt) (Trading Economics, 2015)
Furthermore, this growth of ICTs in the country has led to the inclusion of ICTs in almost all Zambian policy documents (Media, 2014). In view of this, the Zambia Government through the Ministry of Education in 2015 declared that Computer Studies as a subject would be compulsory in Primary Schools (National_Assembly_of_Zambia, 2018).
The introduction of Computer Science in Primary Schools, which is the lower level of education and the concern of the increase in Carbon emissions means that the ICTs education in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) should then include the sustainable use and disposal of ICTs, which Green Computing covers. Green Computing is concerned with using and disposing ICTs in ways that reduce the amount of carbon and other hazardous gases that have an adverse effect on the environment (AHMED, 2018).
Computing comprises both hardware and software (Freeman, 2016) and (Murugesan, 2008) defines green computing as studying and implementing more eco-friendly practices in the design, manufacture, use and disposal of all ICTs. This includes hardware devices and the associated subsystems such as networking technology and software systems running on these devices, in an effective and efficient manner with no or minimal environmental impact (AHMED, 2018).

Problem Statement
Several studies suggest that the adoption of green computing can be through the application of the theory of planned behaviour, which describes the relationship between future behavioural intentions in the use of ICTs and their impact on the environment (Asadi et al., 2015). Therefore, there is a better way to modify the future planned behaviour than using the educational system. Currently in Zambia, the government has introduced ICTs at the Primary School level. There is need therefore to develop the future use of these ICTs in ways that have very little environmental impact. This is also the view that there is evidence that the growth of ICTs in Zambia beyond the urban area is definitely expected and this in turn will lead to an increase in carbon emission in the environment.
Therefore, this study intended to assess the levels of awareness of green computing in institutions of higher learning, and based on the level of awareness recommend better ways on how it could be incorporated in the existing curriculum to modify the intended behaviour of future Zambian managers, administrators, educators, users, and policy makers.

Research Objectives
In order to assess the awareness and the adoption of Green Computing in HEIs in Zambia, the research specifically pursued the following objectives; 1) Investigation of the level of use of ICTs in HEIs in Zambia; 2) Examination of the relationship between the level of use of ICTs and the level of awareness of Green Computing in HEIs in Zambia; 3) Determination of the relationship between the awareness and the adoption of Green Computing in HEIs in Zambia.

Research Questions
The attainment of the research objectives required providing answers to research questions for each of the objective as follows: 2) What are the current Green Computing initiatives adopted in HEIs in Zambia?
3) What factors influence purchase of new ICTs in HEIs in Zambia? 4) How are ICTs disposed of in HEIs in Zambia?

Literature Review
In view of the fact that green computing is a well-researched area, the literature review in this paper  The observations from the literature suggest the following regarding each of the three themes: •

ICT in Education and Development:
Most of the research alluded to the fact that there has been a growth in the use of ICTs in the past decade and most of this growth has been in developing countries.
This has led to the adoption of ICTs in Higher Educational Institutions. Most of the developing countries had deliberate policies that allow the governments to invest in future ICTs infrastructure or promote an enabling environment for the ICTs market to thrive. This is because there has been research that links the use of ICTs and the national economic growth.
• Green Computing Awareness: Research showed that there was high awareness in developed countries like Romania especially in higher educational institutions. There was a moderate level of awareness in Middle Eastern countries. Finally, the level of awareness in developing countries was very low. Therefore, the more developed a country is, the higher the level of green computing awareness.
• Green Computing Adoption: The research showed that the level of adoption of green computing in developed countries is very high while very low in the Middle Eastern and developing countries.
Part of the reason alluded to the strong legislation guidelines in the developed countries on the use and disposal of ICTs, which are an effective way to influence the planned future behaviour of a country.
However, the main gap in the literature review was mainly that there was no literature that focussed on Zambia or even the sub-Saharan countries apart from one paper on e-waste management in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which was also simply a desk research. There was however, a paper by Freeman on HEIs in Ghana and another from Uganda.

Method
In order to provide the answers to the questions posed and achieve the objectives of this research, the researcher used the quantitative method to measure the main factors that influence the awareness and adoption of green computing in higher educational institutions. This was through the preparation of questionnaires using Google Forms, which were distributed to both the students and staff communities at ZCAS through randomly selecting the respondents, via email and the WhatsApp application. The research consisted of a total of 120 respondents, 94 students and 26 members of staff including lecturers. The resulting data collected and its analysis is discussed in the next section. Heuristic methods were also deployed in exploring the concepts further, with further review of other literature for obtaining more background information.

Result
The data analysis was categorised into three main themes that were addressing the research objectives and providing answers to the research questions.

Use of ICTs
According to the results from the data collected, all the respondents were using some type of ICT with only 2.1% using only one of type device. For the majority of the users, they were using between 2 (29.5%) to 3 (37.9%) devices as shown in Figure 3 below; Furthermore, the most used devices among the respondents were laptops and mobile phones owing to the fact that every respondent owned both a laptop and a mobile phone as shown in the Figure 4 below;

Figure 4. The Type of the Device Used
These results show that the level of use of the ICTs in higher educational institutions in Zambia is very high and most of the students use the ICTs for educational purposes (95.8%) given that ZCAS emphasizes on the use eLearning as a mode of learning as shown in Figure 5 below;

Green Computing Awareness
Though the level of use is very high, the general observation was that there was moderate awareness of what green computing was as demonstrated in Figure 6 below that shows that 68.4% of the respondents did not know what green computing was.

Figure 6. Aware of Green Computing
Furthermore, the results showed that a moderate number of users were neutral on whether during their use, the ICTs contributed to carbon emissions in the environment, followed by an inclination towards an indication that the ICTs did not contribute to Carbon emissions in the environment as indicated in Figure 7 below.

Figure 7. ICTs Contribute to Carbon Emissions to Our Environment
However, the results showed that most of the users thought that the ICTs could produce toxic waste if disposed of into the environment as shown in Figure 8 below. Most of the users generally agreed that the use of ICT devices with high specifications might result in using more energy to power the devices as shown in Figure 9 below.

Device
In addition, a moderate number of respondents agreed that reducing power consumption when using ICTs (reducing the brightness of the screen or putting your PC to sleep when not in use) reduces the amount of radiation in the environment that has a negative effect on our ozone layer. However, there was a significant number of respondents (35%) that remained neutral on the issue as shown in Figure   10 below.

Green Computing Adoption
Despite the moderate awareness level of green computing, its adoption on the other hand is extremely low as observed from the fact that most users of ICT equipment concentrate more on other specifications instead of checking whether the equipment meets the Eco-design Directive 2009/125/ and EC Energy Labelling Directive 2010/30/EU as shown in Figure 11 below. This is despite the fact that the same respondents were aware of the heating from ICT equipment, which contributes to radiation in the environment as earlier shown is Figure 10.

Directive 2010/30/EU
Most of the ZCAS staff (58.7%) agreed in principle that auction sales are eco-friendly way of disposing of old ICT equipment. At a personal level, the majority of respondents either sell the ICT device (31.6%) when it is no longer in use or simply pass it on to a friend or relative.

Figure 12. Ways of Disposing of ICT Devices That Are no longer in Use
The results also showed that the recycling of and refurbishing ICT devices (68.8%) can help prevent them becoming e-waste that has a negative impact on our environment. In addition, 68% respondents agreed that the use of virtualisation and other cloud-based solutions could help in reducing the amount of toxins emitted into the environment.
There was also an overwhelming response from the students (55.8%) that the issue of eco-friendly use and disposal of ICTs was not covered in any of the courses that students were taking at ZCAS as demonstrated in Figure 13 below.

Figure 13. Eco-Friendly Use and Disposal of ICTs Covered in a Course in Your Programme
The results also intimated that the IT community in Zambia had not done enough in educating the ZCAS community of the eco-friendly use and disposal of ICTs as shown in Figure 14 below.

Eco-Friendly Use and Disposal of ICTs
Finally, most of the respondents indicated that they had not come across any legislation or regulation in Zambia that emphasised on the eco-friendly use and disposal of ICTs as shown in Figure 15.

Eco-Friendly Use and Disposal of ICTs in Zambia?
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree

Discussion
The results in the previous section showed that there was a high level of use of ICTs by users in HEIs and most of them were used for educational purposes. The level of use however, did not mean that the users were aware of green computing. The results demonstrated that the level of awareness of eco-friendly use and disposal of green computing was very moderate to minimal. That could be seen from the fact that the users did not believe that the use of ICTs could contribute to carbon emissions in our environment; however, users were concerned about the possible effect of e-waste disposal on the environment.
That simply showed that respondents lack in-depth sensitization on the overall effects of the use and disposal of ICTs on the environment. In addition, most of the respondents were more aware of green computing aspects that have a direct effect on the immediate environment or have an economic impact.
An example of this was the fact that the respondents were aware that the emitted heat from the ICT devices has a negative effect on the environment. The research also illustrated that more needed to be done to ensure adoption of green computing in HEIs.
The results showed that the adoption was low at personal level when it came to paying particular attention to the eco-design or energy labelling of the devices over other specifications of the ICTs. At institutional level, there was need for ZCAS to include the Eco-friendly use and disposal of the ICTs as an important and accepted tool for learning in the curricula. That would be in line with the theory of planned behavior that would enable HEIs to help the students become more concerned about not only their immediate environment but also their immediate environment, the nation, and the earth at large to be in line with the principle of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
The IT community, in this case the ICT Association of Zambia, would as well need to adopt green computing as an area that needed inclusion in their agenda as most of the IT professionals and those to be IT professionals will adopt eco-friendly IT practices as a requirement by their professional body.
Finally, the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) would require developing and implementing a deliberate policy on the eco-friendly use and disposal of ICTs in Zambia. This would go a long way to bring about the awareness and adoption of green computing in Zambia just like the National ICT Policy has led to the adoption and use of ICTs in almost all the sectors in Zambia.