Green Computing Practices and Sustainable Information Technology Infrastructure in Higher Education Institutions in Rivers State, Nigeria

Higher education institutions in Nigeria are rapidly expanding their information technology (IT) infrastructure to support digital learning, administration, and research, yet this expansion occurs largely without structured green computing governance frameworks, generating escalating energy consumption, mounting electronic waste (e-waste), and deteriorating IT sustainability outcomes. This study investigates the joint impact of energy-efficient hardware and virtualization practices and e-waste management and green procurement on sustainable IT infrastructure performance in higher education institutions in Rivers State, Nigeria. Grounded in the Technology-Organization Environment (TOE) Framework and Resource Efficiency Theory, a quantitative positivist research design was adopted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 244 IT managers, system administrators, computer science lecturers, and network engineers across nine higher education institutions in Rivers State, yielding 218 usable responses (response rate = 89.3%). Instruments achieved strong psychometric properties (Cronbach's α = 0.87–0.90; Content Validity Index = 0.92). Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Version 27 through descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression. Multiple regression results reveal that energy-efficient hardware and virtualisation practices (β = 0.438, t = 7.02, p < .001) and e-waste management and green procurement (β = 0.364, t = 5.84, p < .001) jointly and significantly predict sustainable IT infrastructure performance (R² = 0.543, Adjusted R² = 0.539, F(2,215) = 126.31, p < .001), jointly explaining 54.3% of the outcome variance. Both null hypotheses were rejected. The study recommends that the Rivers State Ministry of Education mandate green computing compliance standards for all state higher education institutions, that institutions formalise IT sustainability governance frameworks with dedicated green computing officers, and that future research conduct longitudinal measurement of energy savings and carbon emission reductions from green computing adoption across Rivers State institutions.