The UC Tech Community recently honored Earth Hour with an insightful gathering focused on the intersection between technology and sustainability. During the event, participants highlighted the complexities of incorporating sustainability within the technology landscape. Featured guests, Jaki Hsieh Wojan, chief information security officer, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR), and Daisy Nip, systemwide data analyst, California Digital Library, joined other members of the UC Tech Community, including Mojgan Amini, IT director, UC San Diego, and Bill Homan, project manager, UC San Diego Supercomputer Center, during a 45-minute Zoom call on April 12, 2024. They shared their perspectives on how sustainability influences technology, its importance, and the methods used to measure and address it.

Jaki Hsieh Wojan, UC ANR, explores technology’s impact on sustainability in her role as chief information security officer

Jaki Hsieh Wojan, Chief Information Security Officer, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR), discussed how technology and data consumption significantly contribute to energy consumption and climate change. Wojan also emphasized how technology can take part in the solution, saying, “Technology can help solve some of the climate change problems that we’re facing [even] now.” She reviewed several sustainability initiatives at ANR, including the Climate Stewards program and the research conducted by the California Institute of Water Resources on agriculture and water conservation. These initiatives aim to educate the community and serve a strategic role in addressing climate change challenges within the agriculture sector. Hsieh Wojan explained that one of the best ways we can all conserve energy is by removing end-of-life devices and moving to devices that are energy-efficiently designed.

Daisy Nip shared unique sustainability initiatives at the California Digital Library

Daisy Nip, systemwide data analyst, California Digital Library, discussed the library’s proactive measures in environmental conservation. By transitioning from paper to digital formats, the California Digital Library has significantly reduced paper waste. Nip highlighted the University of California’s collaborative efforts with global library partners to maintain essential physical book collections while minimizing waste. Nip shared this update in her presentation, Environmental Sustainability: Digitization at Libraries and posed the following sustainability questions to the tech community, including: (i) How can we incorporate sustainability criteria into the decision-making process for new tech projects; and (ii) What are some approaches to making AI and big data systems more energy-efficient?

Mojgan Amini, UC San Diego: bringing awareness and a cultural change through emissions tracking

Mojgan Amini, director of process management & continuous improvement at UC San Diego has had a UC Tech award named after her, the Mojan A. Amini Operational Excellence Award, and was recently acknowledged for her contribution to sustainability with a Women’s History Month Spotlight for SustainableIT.org. Today, she is spearheading an initiative aimed at monitoring energy consumption of UC San Diego’s tech teams. During the discussion, Amini explained how UC San Diego is pinpointing crucial areas for tracking the emissions of data centers. By establishing a framework for measuring energy consumption and setting a baseline, UC San Diego’s IT Services can begin to address the cultural change that will be needed by making improvements and applying new sustainability strategies going forward.

Jackie Brown highlights the importance of infrastructure maintenance in technology innovation

Jackie Brown, a student at UC Berkeley and an IT Marketing and Communications intern for the UC Tech community, shared insights from her data ethics class. She highlighted the article “Hail the Maintainers,” which stresses that, while innovation often attracts considerable excitement and funding, it frequently overlooks the crucial role of maintaining infrastructure. This point sparked discussions on the environmental effects of technology, particularly regarding data storage.

Economic challenges of sustainable practices in technology at UC San Diego with Bill Homan, UC San Diego Supercomputer Center

The UC San Diego team emphasized that transitioning to sustainable practices might have economic costs. Bill Homan, a project manager at the UC San Diego Supercomputer Center, noted that the substantial energy costs associated with high-tech advancements like supercomputers are expected to be passed onto researchers. While educators and students may also bear some of the costs, the primary impact is anticipated to fall on the researcher. This reflects an example of the challenges of technological innovation and sustainability.

Laurel Skurko, UC Office of the President, discusses the environmental and financial costs of data processing in Generative AI

Laurel Skurko, the editor of UC Tech News, raised the issue of the energy cost of processing massive amounts of data in generative AI. Event participants noted electricity expenses as a significant and immediate indicator of the environmental impact of data processing. They emphasized that the costs of cooling data-processing computers, often reflected in monthly electricity bills, serve as a constant reminder of the need to balance the value of data processing with both financial and environmental considerations.

Matt St.Clair, UC Office of the President, shared this message

While Matt St.Clair, Chief Sustainability Officer at the UC Office of the President, was unable to attend our event, he sent this message to the UC Tech community:

“I would encourage members of the UC Tech community to subscribe to the sustainability newsletter on their campus and also to consider pursuing green office or green lab certification, depending on where they work, and green event certification for all events they organize.”

St. Clair also recommended the UC Tech community read the 2023 UC Sustainability Report, which is interactive and online.

Join the conversation

For those interested in sharing their combined interest in the UC Tech community and sustainability, feel free to connect with one another on LinkedIn and join the conversation by adding your name to this UC Tech+Sustainability Contact List. When other opportunities arise to share perspectives, we look forward to connecting again.

Mark your calendars and contact the UC Tech News team to schedule more conversations, including on the following key dates:

Earth Hour – Saturday, March 22, 2025, 8:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Earth Day – Tuesday, April 22, 2025, all day

Author

Jackie Brown

Marketing & Communications Intern

UC Office of the President

NEWS: Earth Hour – UC Tech employees measuring the relationship between tech and sustainability