I love the internet. As a child of Generation X, I had to rely extensively on libraries and books for any research that I might want to do until fortuitously, the internet arrived and I was and still am able to find answers to all my questions of life, death and the universe, online. This has been a great thing, even though it has been accompanied by social media and our obsessive desire to leave none of our narcissistic tendencies overlooked.
The increase in our digital use during and post-pandemic has also meant that we have transferred many of our high carbon emitting activities to slightly lower ones. Using Zoom instead of our cars for meetings, flying less for conferences, reading our books online instead of contributing to forest depletion and excessive water use by reading paper backs, even sending emails instead of letters, all use less carbon.
What does a digital carbon footprint mean?
But even though there is less carbon being emitted when we surf the internet, post on social media and send emails, that is not to say that NO carbon is being emitted. From the manufacture, end-use and finally the end of the products life, all our electronic devices use energy in some form or the other. And this has an impact on Earth’s climate and environment, especially when the sources of energy are from fossil fuels. This impact is our digital carbon footprint. The extraction of material from the ground to make phones and laptops, further contributes to the degradation of ecosystems and the environment.
The digital carbon footprint is the amount of emissions released due to digital technology. Electricity is used to power our devices, and also to keep the internet running. Buildings are required to house the hardware, data from computer networks, cloud services and digital applications — all of which need energy. The IT sector already uses an estimated 7% of global electricity according to Greenpeace and this is projected to increase to 20% of all electricity produced in the future.
Digital technologies now contribute 5.5% of the world’s carbon emissions, likely to double by 2025. According to the Shift Project digital energy consumption rises by around 9% every year.
