The digital carbon footprint: what’s true or false
While ecological urgency has led us to question the effects of our digital activities, their exact measurement remains complex, as the parameters taken into account can vary so widely.
To think about the ecological issues surrounding digital technology, we need to understand the real scope, as opposed to the idea of an “immaterial” infrastructure. Submarine cables, data centers, maritime and road transport, base stations, routers, terminals: digital technology is based on a complex system.The result of technical, political and economic choices, this vast infrastructure involves the exploitation of natural resources, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, the use of chemicals and the production of waste.
However, these issues are not specific to the digital world, and must always be considered globally, both in their societal context and in relation to other activities or forms of consumption. CO2 emissions, caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, are a particularly important indicator for estimating the ecological impact of a sector or activity. In the case of the digital sector, these greenhouse gases are mainly emitted during equipment production: extraction of raw materials, transport, machining and assembly.
In addition, the components needed to operate these devices are usually manufactured in China, a country whose electricity comes mainly from coal. The carbon footprint induced by the use of equipment, meanwhile, depends largely on the source of the electricity needed for online activities, which can vary significantly from country to country.For the same use, the CO2 impact can therefore differ depending on the type of energy used. During the equipments use phase, which involves ever more cloud services, most of the energy is consumed in data centers.
These energy-intensive infrastructures are nonetheless moving towards carbon neutrality. For some years now, major digital companies have been actively pursuing this path.Google, for example, claims that its data centers have been carbon neutral since 2007, and the goal is completely phase out this type of emission by the end of 2030.Finally, it’s worth pointing out that, although the digital sector receives a great deal of media attention, it represents only 4 to 5% of total global CO2 emissions, i.e. a small share divided between industry (39%), transport (27%), buildings (28%) and various other sectors (6%).
However, digital technology is growing fast and this number could increase in the future.Taking only the usage phase into account, digital technology represents approximately 3% to 4% of global energy consumption.Over the years, devices have become increasingly energy-efficient, yet overall power consumption in the digital sector is not decreasing. Against this backdrop, some countries (notably France) are considering measures to encourage users to reduce their use of data. But just how closely are data consumption and energy linked? Contrary to what you might think, the relationship between data consumption and energy consumption is not directly linear.
The use of the mobile or wifi network for example has a fixed cost that remains relatively stable. If all mobile subscribers halved their data consumption, energy costs would not halve. The same applies to wifi: Wifi hotspots are usually permanently switched on, and their energy consumption is not proportional to the amount of data transmitted. One of the arguments put forward by 5G’s advocates is precisely that this technology would enable energy efficiency gains thanks to the “standby” mode of base stations when demand is low.
The idea that digital sobriety can be achieved by limiting data consumption is not self-evident. The principle of data-limited mobile packages is more in line with the economic concerns of phone providers, who are looking for a return on their infrastructure investments , rather than helping the ecological cause. While ecological urgency has led us to question the effects of our digital activities, their exact measurement remains complex, as the parameters taken into account can vary so widely.
