Green DiSC: a Digital Sustainability Certification

With the huge increase in use of computing resources and infrastructure to support our research, sustainable use of computing is now a key aspect of how we undertake research. The Green DiSC "Digital Sustainability Certification" provides a path to more sustainable computing use for research organisations and the teams and groups within them.

At Imperial, the central ICT team is undertaking Green DiSC certification and aims to submit our paperwork for bronze accreditation by October 2026. Various departments are also starting on their Green DiSC journey, such as the Departments of Aeronautics and Computing. 
On this page you will find a central institutional repository for ICT sustainability resources, including the progress and materials used by central ICT to address key Green DiSC criteria. These can be used to provide support with other departments’ Green DiSC application work.

Visit the Green DiSC GitHub site for more information about the bronze and silver criteria for central, research computing infrastructure and research groups

Central Institutional Repository for ICT Sustainable Resources

Useful links:

Please feel free to re-use material shown below from the central ICT Green DiSC application in your own departmental Green DiSC applications: 

Green DiSC Criteria completed 

Completed criteria
Nomination of a green DiSC representative.

Dr Hannah Scott, Head of Sustainability

Computing sustainability is encouraged to be included in induction procedures.

There is material ready for use in induction procedures and recruiters are encouraged to use it.  

ICT sustainability is included within the induction given to all new students by ICT ICT induction for new students 2025-26.pptx. Sustainability is also promoted within the introduction video for new staff within ICT.

The 7 Steps to ICT Sustainability Infographic can also be easily added to induction processes across the university.

Next step: Imperial’s Sustainability Hub is aiming to add sustainability to Imperial Essentials – our core staff training offering that all staff are required to complete and refresh on a regular basis -  and will consult ICT on key sustainability aspects.  
There is a central institutional repository for sustainable resources.  A Green DiSC webpage has been set up on the Imperial website which provides an entry point to a repository of information on ICT sustainability from a variety of sources.  
Dissemination of this program – the central team is well place to encourage individual research groups to engage with this. 

Green DiSC is promoted through Imperial’s Property team, Research England-funded research culture work on developing a sustainable institutional research computing culture, and through Imperial’s Sustainability Hub team.

Various departments across Imperial are starting the process of applying for Green DiSC certification, e.g. Department of Aeronautics, Department of Computing.  
Identification of different waste processing streams. What happens to electronic waste is identified.

We use Converge and Academia as our recycling partners. Converge is independently certified by Valpak as a zero-avoidable-landfill business. 
Every piece of tech they collect is either reused or recycled.

Imperial can track our assets all the way through their recycling process, including a full recycling audit, a certificate of disposal and a social value report.

Our webpage on waste explains clearly what staff and students should do with various types of waste, including a "submit a waste request" form.
Inventory of main data solutions.

Imperial provides a variety of centrally-managed data storage solutions to its research and professional services staff members and its students. As part of providing these solutions, we also aim to ensure that they have associated policies that support efficient and sustainable storage approaches:

  • OneDrive / SharePoint cloud-based personal file storage (staff/research students 200GB quota; other accounts 100GB)
  • Box cloud-based storage for research data (100GB initial, increases possible)
  • Research Data Store – Imperial's RDF-Active data storage facility for public, unrestricted data – a high-performance service for large-scale research data storage
  • Helix FAIR data repository 

In addition to the above services, some research groups operate their own servers and associated data storage infrastructure. The hardware for these resources is generally co-located within one of the third-party data centres that Imperial uses, for example the Virtus Slough data centre. 
Regular cleaning of centrally managed data storage. There is a process in place, dates and support for regular clean up of centrally managed data. Research groups are being told how their storage space is being used. This happens regularly (yearly).   A regular clean up of data storage (every 6 months) is being promoted through the 7 steps to ICT sustainability and through the new Green Computing course created by RCS.  Department of Aeronautics is looking into the possibility of implementing a yearly clean up.
Training on green computing best practices is offered centrally. The institution offers workshops or online resources to educate researchers about green computing best practices e.g. using checkpointing to limit unnecessary reruns and known code optimisation best practices relevant to the groups activities 

Imperial has a new Digital Research Sustainability short course developed as part of a project supported by Research England Research Culture funding.

This project aimed to develop ideas and infrastructure to support the growth of a sustainable research computing culture at Imperial. The project was led by Imperial’s Director of Research Software Engineering Strategy in collaboration with our Research Computing Service, and Head of Sustainability.

The Head of Sustainability created the 7 steps to ICT sustainability, and the RCS team led the development of the new  course focused on green and sustainable research computing practices.

The course will be run regularly to support our aims around Green DiSC certification and develop a more general understanding around sustainable research computing within the Imperial community. 
Inventory of the different purchasing streams for hardware: 

A list of the different ways staff acquire different hardware and where these come from. Include warranty in place for each. Does not include HPC. 

Staff can procure computing hardware from HP (now a 5 year standard warranty), Academia (for Apple – 3 years warranty) and BT Business Direct (for components, e.g. hard disk drives / SSDs, RAM, CPUs, etc. and, peripherals) as approved suppliers via ICT via ISIS. 

In some specific cases, staff can apply for a virtual credit card to purchase hardware items from other suppliers.  
Template and training resources for data management are made available centrally to all. Suitable training for data management plans is key to sustainable data storage.   Imperial is committed to promoting the highest standards of excellence in research data management. Training for data management is made available centrally to all.