We need to include digital sustainability in climate action

Organisations working to decarbonise and reach their net zero targets need to start factoring in the environmental impact of digital technology, writes Tom Greenwood.

Most of us tend to think of the internet in terms that imply that it does not physically exist, such as ‘virtual’, ‘wireless’ or ‘the cloud’. The physical infrastructure of the digital world is largely out of sight and out of mind and as a result, we might not give enough attention to the impact that digital technology has on the climate. Where we do think about the topics of digital and climate together, it is often in the context of how digital technology can help us solve the climate crisis: for example, through climate modelling, smart cities, or sharing climate research.

Yet of course, the internet has a very real climate impact of its own. Researchers at Lancaster University estimate the greenhouse gas emissions from the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, which includes the internet, all its infrastructure and connected devices, as totalling 2.1–3.9% of all global emissions, which is equal to or greater than the 2.1% emitted by the global aviation industry.

How can a ‘virtual’ technology have such a high carbon footprint?

The simple answer is that the internet is not virtual at all. If considered as a whole, it is arguably the largest machine that humans have ever created. It consists of thousands of huge data centres connected by networks spanning the entire globe to billions of devices from smartphones and laptops to smart TVs and a growing variety of appliances, sensors and even vehicles. This technology is all powered by electricity and much of it is ‘always on’.

To give a sense of scale, just one hyperscale data centre in Japan covers an area equivalent to 20 football pitches and is packed full of high-powered servers running 24/7. Another data centre being built for Facebook in the Netherlands has committed to using 100% renewable energy but will consume the equivalent of 10% of the country’s entire wind energy supply.

These data centres are connected through hundreds of thousands of kilometres of fibre cables and telecom networks spanning most of the world, with the centres and networks each currently accounting for about 1–1.5% of global electricity use. And we have an ever-increasing number of internet-connected devices. It is estimated that there will be three times as many of these devices as the global population by the end of 2023, requiring the mining of critical minerals in their production and contributing to electronic waste as older devices are replaced. These devices account for around 50% of ICT’s total power use.

Some in the digital sector state that we should not worry about the energy consumption of digital technology because hardware efficiency is improving so rapidly that the sector’s emissions will decline in the future. However, so far this has not been the case, as rapidly rising demand for digital services has outpaced improvements in energy efficiency. For example, demand for data centre capacity tripled between 2014 and 2020, meaning that despite significant improvements in energy efficiency, overall energy consumption increased by 3%. This may in part be attributed to rebound effects, also known as Jevon’s paradox, in which increasing efficiency of technology leads to increased use of the technology.

What can be done to reduce the sector’s emissions?

Many of the Big Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft have made sustainability and net zero commitments in recent years, although there has been criticism of there being an overreliance on offsets and the potential of as-yet immature technologies such as Direct Air Capture at the expense of committing to directly cutting emissions. However, these statements and plans have increased awareness of the environmental impact of digital technology, as has an increase in coverage of this topic by mainstream media such as the BBC and Financial Times.

As a result of this heightened awareness, more organisations of all sizes are beginning to ask how they can quantify and reduce their own digital emissions. But this can be a hard question to answer, as the impact of digital technology is dispersed through the internet, particularly in the case of cloud services, data networks and end user devices.

Furthermore, technology providers often publish very little data about the energy consumption and emissions of their services. Adam Kramer from Switch Data Centers has said, “As an industry we need to be more transparent, because if we’re going to solve the actual problem of energy, we need to be transparent about the totality of the problem itself….”

Even where the energy use and emissions of data centres are reported, attributing the figures to specific usage of a software application can be extremely difficult. Google’s Gary Demasi has said, “The technology inside the servers is no longer just the metal container – virtualization happens across infrastructure, and may actually span multiple facilities to be as efficient as possible for the customer. So the problem gets compounded.”

Tools and methodologies for calculating software emissions are emerging, including Google’s Cloud Hosting Carbon Calculator, the open source Cloud Carbon Footprint tool for Google and AWS hosting, the DIMPACT initiative for online media streaming services and the open source Sustainable Web Design model for website emissions. However, there is a lack of consensus in the industry on how digital emissions should be calculated and reported. These are challenges that need to be quickly overcome.

Even in the absence of reliable accounting tools and data there are things organisations can do to reduce their digital emissions. For example, they can set a procurement requirement that all cloud services must be hosted in data centres with a commitment to using renewable energy. They can brief digital design and development teams to prioritise solutions that use as little data and computational power as possible, also known as sustainable web design or green software development. Digital engineers can adopt what is called carbon aware computing, whereby computationally intensive processes are carried out when the carbon intensity of the local grid electricity is low. And for digital marketing and communications teams, simply adopting a more mindful, minimalist approach to content and media can be a powerful principle.

A further challenge in terms of digital emissions is the question of where one organisation’s responsibility ends and another’s begins. In particular, what should be included in an organisation’s Scope 3 emissions – should they, for example, count the impact of someone browsing their website or watching their online video? More broadly, to what extent are digital emissions the responsibility of the producers versus the consumers? These are topics being debated but on which there is not yet a clear consensus.

Finding a balance

Like all aspects of climate change, no doubt a degree of shared responsibility and collective action is needed to solve the problem. In the case of digital technology, this means that organisations will need to produce cleaner, more efficient digital services that are designed to encourage more mindful consumption. We need to find the balance between using digital technology to improve our lives and solve real societal problems, while minimising the downsides for the environment and human wellbeing.

Tom Greenwood is the co-founder of Wholegrain Digital, who provide the Grantham Research Institute with their website support. The author would like to thank Marketa Benisek and Georgina Kyriacou for their input into an earlier draft.

The views in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Grantham Research Institute.