Simple efficiency measures in schools' use of technology are often all that's needed to save energy, resources and the environment.

It is very very frustrating working in schools at times.  If we are talking about a green ICT agenda or dare I even say a green or environmental policy for a school then we would take  a massive leap forward by just making the school or Head Teacher responsible for their financial budgets.  To often these budgets are largely determined by what you spend and little focus or local government transparency is given to what the school should actually be spending!  A little more emphasis on budgets in-line with the private sectors way of thinking would be a big step forward.

Of course technology is great but the flip side of this is the misuse of it.  Only the other night I was undertaking some remote support on a clients laptop and I notice the support console indicating that a school pc used by the management team had been left on.  I duly logged in and shut it down.  I DREAD TO THINK how many pc's are left on like this in schools - in some case whole ICT suites probably.

This is an interesting article from the Guardian by Julie Nightingale, in which:

Professor Peter James, an associate of the UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (UK Ceed) and author of the SusteIT (Sustainable IT in Tertiary Education) report on greening ICT in further and higher education, says while ICT obviously has many benefits in education it comes with a "heavy environmental footprint". "IT accounts for around 2% of global carbon emissions, uses large amounts of materials, and creates toxicity risks in both production and disposal," he says. Alongside more switching off and powering down, he points to better use of ICT applications, such as videoconferencing, as a greener way forward.

If you work hard on your policies and systems and apply the right technology in the right areas, use it as it is designed to be used and in sensible fashion then your school can improve its energy conservation.  

However, these are real things, the hardest thing to do is to change how people think!