Green Lab:Designing Environmentally Sustainable Computer Classrooms during Economic Downturns

•I examine strategies for cultivating more environmentally sustainability computer writing classrooms, including power management and material arrangements.•Strategically deploying energy efficient hardware and software can conserve environmental resources, money, and personnel efforts.•Environmentally sustainable writing classrooms are a physical instantiation of long held scholarly commitments to engaging ethics and social responsibility.

This article offers a detailed design and concrete plan for the stewardship of an environmentally sustainable computer classroom that employs a thin client approach to power management. Though greener computer labs might seem financially out of reach during the current economic crisis, this article explains how writing programs can align efforts to reduce energy consumption with efforts to weather the current financial downturn while providing up-to-date communications technologies instruction.