The article Quand le numérique détruit la planète (Pitron, 2021a) provides an impressive account of how the digital world consumes massive amounts of energy. This is not because the information technology has not been developed efficiently enough. In fact, quite the opposite: The first computers – such as the ENIAC, which was presented to the public in 1946 – used as much electricity as an entire town. Although today’s smartphones are much more powerful than the first computers and use very little energy, more energy is being consumed overall than before. This is due to the ever-increasing number of electronic devices such as computers, tablets and smartphones.

It is estimated that information technology nowadays causes 2% to 3% of all carbon emissions, more than the total emissions from commercial aviation (Abiteboul & Dowek, 2017; cf. Pitron, 2021, for a more detailed description of this topic). However, with regard to the effects of digitalisation on the environment, it is not just carbon emissions that play a decisive role. A recently published study by R. Obringer et al. (2021) not only takes into account the carbon footprint, but also the water and land footprints that are created when data is stored or transmitted through the fixed internet. The researchers found that particularly large amounts of CO2 are produced when streaming videos, and a lot of water is also consumed. In addition, large areas of forests are cleared to extract important raw materials for producing the technology that is needed for streaming. Video streaming therefore has a large carbon footprint, as well as large land and water footprints.

The impact of the fifth generation of mobile communication on the environment should not be underestimated either: ‘5G’, as it is known, will take over from the current 4G standard. It offers faster data transmission and only needs one thousandth of the energy per transmitted bit compared to its predecessor. The downside is that the introduction of 5G will most likely give rise to what is known in economics as the Jevons Paradox or rebound effect. This occurs when technical progress enables a raw material to be used more efficiently, which then leads to it being used more. In our context, this means: Due to the faster data transmission speeds offered by 5G, it is very likely that the total data volume will increase significantly (Abiteboul & Berry, 2021).

Sustainable development is another area that is continuously benefiting from the advancements brought by the ‘digital revolution’. For example, scientific models that predict and analyse global warming trends are based on algorithms. Without algorithms and computer science, it would be virtually impossible to create such models and predict future developments. Even the sheer volume of data that enables us to produce reliable scientific climate studies can only be processed and analysed with the help of digital technologies. Equally reliant on digitalisation are smart electricity networks that continuously align the production of electricity with consumption and thereby contribute towards a more environmentally friendly energy supply. Whereas in the past, huge power plants were built that produced electricity for a very large area, local solutions in which electricity is produced and distributed locally have become more feasible in recent times. However, this is only possible with the help of algorithms that manage the distribution (Abiteboul & Dowek, 2017). To quote the engineer Dr. Benoit Mattlet (see interview): ‘In the past, we consumed what was produced. Today, we produce what we consume.’

The impact of individual decisions and behavioural changes – such as only using search engines in considered and justified cases or only sending urgently needed attachments by email – is very minor, as things like emails only make up a very small proportion of the total data traffic (Abiteboul & Dowek, 2017). Videos, on the other hand, account for a large percentage. An important goal would therefore be to optimise the transmission of video-related data. However, the sheer distance that has to be covered between the streaming providers’ servers and the end users is a big problem. A local solution would therefore be desirable here, too: If these videos were available on servers close to us (e.g. on the server of a neighbour who has just watched the same video), we would be able to save electricity. This process is known as peer-to-peer streaming. P2P streaming isn’t very widespread yet, though some P2P video platforms are now trying to compete with giants like YouTube, but the concept is a heavily debated topic in current research (Ramzan, 2012).

Another approach in the area of sustainable development is to use the heat produced by computers and servers for heating purposes. Computers and data servers radiate an enormous amount of heat. At present, this heat is simply lost, instead of being fed into heating systems, for example. Research into such solutions has been ongoing for some time now (Brouet, 2016), and companies and startups are already bringing the first devices to market (Hodson, 2015). Apart from the attempts to make data centres ‘greener’ in general by using renewable energies, the outlined approaches are currently the most promising concepts in the field of sustainable development.

References
Abiteboul, Serge, & Berry, Gilles. (2021). 5G : le temps des questionnements. Binaire. Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/binaire/2021/10/22/5g-le-temps-des-questionnements/
Abiteboul, Serge, & Dowek, Gilles. (2017). Le Temps Des Algorithmes Paris: Le Pommier.
Brouet, Anne-Muriel. (2016). Using servers for home heating. Phys.org. https://phys.org/news/2016-07-servers-home.html
Hodson, Hal. (2015). The computer that crunches cloud data to heat your home. NewScientist. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530072-800-the-computer-that-crunches-cloud-data-to-heat-your-home/#ixzz7U8zhGe79
Obringer, Renee,  Rachunok, Benjamin, Maia-Silva, Debora, Arbabzadeh, Maryam, Nateghi, Roshanak, & Madani, Kaveh. (2021). The overlooked environmental footprint of increasing Internet use. Resources, Conservation and Recycling,167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105389
Pitron, Guillaume. (2021). L’enfer numérique. Voyage au bout d’un like. Les liens qui libèrent. LLL, Les liens qui libèrent.
Pitron, Guillaume. (2021a). Quand le numérique détruit la planète. Le Monde diplomatique. https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2021/10/PITRON/63595
Ramzan, Naeem, Park, Hyunggon, and Izquierdo, Ebroul. (2012). Video Streaming over P2P Networks: Challenges and Opportunities. Signal Processing. Image Communication, 27(5), 401-411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.image.2012.02.004