Richa Kanoongo

Digital evolution is playing a key role in supporting all 17 themes of SDGs. In this blog, I will associate it with The UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 i.e. Responsible Consumption and Production and Goal 13 i.e. Climate Action. I want to highlight the lack of knowledge and concern about negative environmental effects such as digital devices overproduction, digital overconsumption, and enormous amounts of CO2 emission by magical internet which is often subsided by the benefits of digitalization. 

What is digitalization? 

Beep… Beep… 6 AM, Instagram, WhatsApp, Email, Facebook, News Feeds, these might be the first things you check on your mobile devices even before you brush your teeth. From the moment we wake up, we are glued to mobile devices, and even more so nowadays during the coronavirus pandemic when most of us are connected to the outside world mainly through digital means. These days we cannot imagine our life without apps such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, Facebook, Google Maps, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube to name a few. Digital Technologies have remarkably changed society, consumer behaviors, and business models in recent years.

Foremost, what is digital technology or digitalization? Simply put, Digitalization is the usage of digital technologies to change the business model, and business value chain, which is changing the way companies and societies interact with each other. Digitalization has created immense possibilities and opportunities, new products and services, processes, and automation in nearly every sector and industry such as retail, shopping, automobile, travel, tourism. The coronavirus pandemic is a perfect example where digital technologies came in very handy for many businesses to maintain continuity. The coronavirus pandemic in today’s VUCA world brought us to a standstill and forced all except essential businesses to close temporarily, extraordinarily affecting the economy, governments, mental and social health of people and societies at large across the world. Small, medium or large enterprises could keep the business continuity mostly through digital means. Now, companies are planning to invest and speed up digitalization to not run out of business. They need to come out stronger after the crisis to sustain the business over time and protect against future uncertainties. Should companies not invest in digitalization now, they might have a tough time surviving in the coming months and years.

Undoubtedly, digitalization has provided profound advancement to society, however, it has its own threats e.g. making jobs redundant and affecting the labor market, data privacy, and cyber-security issues, etc. However, amidst all these, there is one problem that is often overlooked by the benefits of digitalization, and that is the harmful effects of digitalization on the environment.

So, the question is, what is the cost to the environment and society at large because of digitalization?

The global information and communications technology (ICT) industry accounts for approximately 1.4% of global carbon emissions. (Malmodin, Jens & Lundén, Dag., 2018) The global airline industry accounts for 2.4% carbon emissions (Brandon Graver, Ph.D., Kevin Zhang, Dan Rutherford, Ph.D., 2019) and it is not a huge difference when compared with the ICT industry. The carbon emission by ICT will only get worse in the coming years and decades as more and more people around the world will get access to mobile devices, the internet, and technologies, and it may surpass the emission compared to the aviation industry.

We all know that the consumption of information on the Internet is tied to many benefits for both companies and consumers; however, most of us are ignorant of the toxic impact it has on the environment. Both companies and consumers need to put in their fair share of effort to reduce the environmental impact.

The digital sector creates several types of pollution, and three such as Daily Digital Use, E-Waste, and Production of IT hardware are mentioned below: (Natixis)

• Daily digital use – An extensive amount of data and information exchange via email, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. is taking place. These services are running using data centers, which are consuming an enormous amount of energy and producing greenhouse gases creating a toxic environment. For e.g. Zoom claims on its website, it takes 1 tree 2 months to offset the CO2 emissions of a virtual meeting. If you multiply that by 200+ million zoom calls a day during the coronavirus pandemic, you can imagine the number of trees needed to offset CO2.
• E-waste- There is a large amount of e-Waste getting generated year over year with most of the waste going into the landfills or combustion (World Economic Forum) in the developing countries such as Ghana, India, Indonesia and releasing toxic materials in the soil and water making it hazardous for people and creating ecological imbalance. The waste that is going into combustion is producing far more toxic air and infecting people in the surrounding areas, resulting in severe health issues.
• Production of IT hardware–The fashion industry supply chain is well-known for its unsustainability and has grabbed a lot of attention in recent years.  Similarly, the IT hardware supply chain is ungreen. The raw materials or metals such as gold, silver, tin, lithium used in the mobile industry are mined in the developing countries in poor working conditions. These materials are toxic and the life-cycle of the end-products is short, lasting a few years only. The digital giants such as Apple and Samsung, who own the largest market share in mobile devices are overproducing which is leading to overconsumption.

These are just a few examples leading to environmental pollution, and in fact, today a lot of us do not see and perceive this as a problem.

What could you as an individual do to reduce the ill-effect of digitalization on the environment, and how?

There is no perfect solution to any of these problems. There needs to be a pull from companies and push from consumers to achieve sustainable development and low-carbon emission goals. During the current coronavirus pandemic, the flight restrictions, limited public transport connectivity, fewer cars on the road, etc. have helped ease the environment, however, this has put pressure on the companies to continue businesses remotely where possible, leading to high usage of mobile devices, and round-the-clock connectivity leading to continuous emission of CO2.

Here are some simple suggestions, which either companies and/ or individuals could take to contribute to low carbon emissions –

• Daily digital use –

1. 1. Using video calls on WhatsApp, Skype, Zoom, etc. consumes much more bandwidth compared to audio calls. Turn off the video when not needed.
   2. Empty your inbox and trash regularly to free up space. Don’t send and receive unwanted and useless emails. Don’t forward messages or reply to emails if not needed.
   3. Unsubscribe from the SPAM mails and dozens of newsletters, which you do not read.
   4. Reduce the size of email and attachment in emails. Stop forwarding unnecessary messages and pictures. Use a cloud storage space such as google drive, Onedrive to share the documents, images, videos.
   5. Do the web search only when you need it and bookmark your favorite websites in order to not search them again and again.
   6. Check search engines such as Ecosia which plants trees based on the number of searches conducted
   7. Turn off the computers and tablets instead of leaving them on standby.
   8. Remove unused apps from your phone. Background data consumption is not only harming the environment but could impact data privacy too.

• E-Waste – 

1. 1. Increase the life cycle of the mobile devices by repairing them instead of replacing them, getting a new battery instead of a new device, companies like Revendo in Switzerland have started such initiatives to repair the devices.
   2. Donate the unused devices to the people in need, to NGOs, to schools, or developing countries to put it to use or trade it second hand before sending it to landfill or combustion.
   3. The typical life-cycle of the mobile devices is a few years ranging from 2 to 4 and companies continue to produce the devices with such a small product life-cycle with little to no concern regarding humans or the environment. Technology giants such as Apple, Samsung who dominate the mobile device market need to venture into innovative ideas to not only stop producing new devices with slight modifications but also repair devices, reward people to keep using old devices or take old devices for new devices.

• Production of IT Hardware –
  1. Using mobile devices with the raw materials extracted fairly, for e.g. Fairphone. It is important to work towards a sustainable supply chain and business value chain, and working towards the benefits of society, and buy mobile devices, which are free of “conflict minerals” (European Commission).
  2. Transparency in the supply chain of the production of mobile devices, from the origination of raw materials to the assembly of the phone made available to consumers for better awareness.
  3. Fair working conditions, and wages for the workers in the mines and factories to ensure good wellbeing, health, and wages.

The world will further get digitally connected and advanced in the coming years. Hence it is our responsibility as a society to take small and informed steps towards sustainable goals to reduce digital consumption and carbon emissions. 

Do you know that if you read this blog in 2 minutes, then it would emit the equivalent of 24 gm of CO2? Mind your carbon footprint caused by unnecessary digital usage. 

References:

1. Malmodin, Jens & Lundén, Dag. (2018). The Energy and Carbon Footprint of the Global ICT and E&M Sectors 2010–2015. Sustainability. 10.3390/su10093027.
2. Brandon Graver, Ph.D., Kevin Zhang, Dan Rutherford, Ph.D. (2019). CO2 emissions from commercial aviation, 2018, https://theicct.org/publications/co2-emissions-commercial-aviation-2018
3. Real environmental impact of the digital world, https://www.natixis.com/natixis/jcms/lpaz5_79618/en/real-environmental-impact-of-the-digital-world
4. The world’s e-waste is a huge problem. It’s also a golden opportunity https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/how-a-circular-approach-can-turn-e-waste-into-a-golden-opportunity/
5. https://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/conflict-minerals-regulation/regulation-explained/