Responsible IT:
Swiss companies in search of sustainability
The issue of the ecological impact of digital technology has become a key topic in the media and the economy. But where does Switzerland compare internationally, and to what extent can the country’s companies take more responsibility?
“Think of the environment, don’t print this message”. Does this little reminder at the end of an e-mail reflect companies’ growing awareness of sustainability issues, or is it a futile measure to reduce the carbon impact of digital communications? This is a legitimate question in today’s connected world, where technologies have taken over everywhere in our society. And the trend is not likely to be reversed.
It’s no coincidence, then, that the issue of the ecological impact of digital technology has come to the forefront of the media and the economy. But where does Switzerland stand, and to what extent can Swiss companies take more responsibility? In 2020, for example, digitalization accounted for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 5 to 10% of global electricity consumption. Is that a lot or a little?
We’re used to associating the environmental footprint of an electronic device by the amount of electricity it consumes. And yet, for most consumer electronics equipment, it is the manufacturing stage that consumes the most natural resources, representing on average 70% of the device’s total life-cycle footprint, according to the 2022 report by the scientific committee of the Swiss Institute for Sustainable IT. It also generates significant social and societal impacts.
But what about the ecological impact of digital technology for Swiss companies? According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO), by 2020, Swiss SMEs and large companies were among the European leaders in the use of ICT at work in 2020. Admittedly, this is a good thing. But it comes at a significant environmental cost. There are many reasons for this: in most Swiss companies, the digitalization of processes has come to be juxtaposed with existing physical processes. Instead of replacing or improving them, it coexists with them. This increase in the number of electronic devices means that companies are polluting more.
In addition, there is a lack of training for employees in these new tools and software. As a result, companies are no more efficient despite their technological evolution. While not directly relevant to Switzerland, the European study conducted in 2021 by the European Institutes for Sustainable IT provides relevant answers that can be extrapolated to Swiss companies. According to the study, 25% of software and applications purchased are never used, and 70% are underused. The study goes on to point out that between 10% and 50% could be dismantled without adversely affecting business operations. Each year, this waste represents a cost of 16 billion francs in Europe.
Still according to the Institute for Sustainable IT study, 20% of machine virtualizations are inactive or hardly used, and 15% of servers hosted in data centers are not used (Institut du Numérique Responsable France, 2021). Internally, companies don’t always keep things simple. The study found that business cell phones are replaced every two years on average, and dual-screen computers have become the norm without necessarily fulfilling an employee need.
There’s no denying that information systems are costly for organizations’ finances. And this economic impact also has environmental consequences. So what can be done to ensure that digital technology is environmentally, socially and economically acceptable in the years to come? According to the scientific committee of the Swiss Institute for Sustainable IT, it is becoming urgent for companies to integrate environmental and social criteria into their digital approaches, in order to not only reduce their footprint, but also optimize their companie’s IT equipment while reducing costs. In Switzerland, the University Hospitals of Geneva, the State of Geneva, the cities of Lausanne and Biel, and other companies to name but a few, have already implemented such measures.
