THE CLIMATE CRISIS Lean ICT
THE LEAN ICT REPORT RECOMMENDS
SPENDING TEN MINUTES WATCHING A HIGH- DEFINITION VIDEO BY STREAMING ON A SMARTPHONE IS EQUIVALENT TO USING A 2000WELECTRIC OVEN AT FULL POWER FOR FIVEMINUTES
1.
Adopt digital sobriety as a principle of action.
2. 3.
Inform and spread awareness.
Mobilise the lever of public purchasing.
4. Allow companies and organisations to manage the environmental dimention of their digital transition. 5. Carry out a carbon balance of digital projects, prioritising projects intended for local economic, social and cultural purposes. 6. Encourage consideration of the systemic environmental impacts of digital technologies. 7. Work at the European scale* and with international organisations. *The Lean ICT working group is France-based
in which technological efficiency almost always leads to more consumption rather than less: “It seems clear that there is no example of a technology that has been introduced in the last 50 years that has allowed, on its own, a net reduction in the use of materials or energy in the processes in which it has been integrated.” The report points out that the rebound effect is all the greater because “the energy and digital transition processes involved are only very rarely coordinated within the same systemic approach”.
It adds: “The risk of a scenario in which increasingly massive investments in digital technology would lead to a net increase in the environmental footprint of digital sectors is therefore very real.” For example, a surprising percentage of a digital device’s carbon footprint is taken up in its manufacture: “Producing a smartphone generates 400 times more emissions than its utilisation in France.” Another problematic aspect of digital hardware manufacture is the massive consumption of metals, some of which are quite rare. Elements like gallium, indium, tantalum, ruthenium and germanium are essential to the manufacturers of most smartphones, but are recycled, according to the report, at a rate of less than 1%, and mining as an industry can be environmentally devastating. So what can be done? The Lean ICT report recommends extending the life of existing hardware as much as possible and support the use of cloud to replace on-premises hardware. The report estimates an annual growth in the energy footprint of digital technologies at 9 to 10%. Such an increase makes the urgent transition to renewables all the more challenging and makes the UN’s recommended 7% per year reduction of greenhouse gas emissions all but impossible. The reports “digital sobriety” recommendation is that annual growth in energy consumption be held to a rate of 1.5% per year. To do this it has proposed a number of recommendations, which it proposes be adopted industry wide. These are listed above. How many of them could you implement in your business right now?
DIGITAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION Distribution of digital energy consumption per item in 2017 (P = Production)
6%
20%
Other P
11%
Consumers
TV P
Computers P
Networks
17%
16%
Smartphones P
Data centres
11%
Download the entire report and learn more at theshiftproject.org
19%
SOURCE: [LEAN ICT MATERIALS] FORECAST MODEL
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