“If I was born 20 years earlier, I would probably have become a computer scientist. But: we are facing climate change. So we need solutions now!“ says Amael Parreaux-Ey, environmental engineering student at EPFL and CEO of Resilio, a company leading the sustainable digital transition. Resilio helps organisations to assess how much their use of digital technology pollute, and how they can change this. Amael is fighting for a sustainable way of using digital technology that he himself likes so passionately.
Currently – especially after the COVID pandemic hit – digital technology seemed like a saviour. We were able to stay at home, communicate and work while it was not safe to meet. Probably a lot of jobs and even our world economy was saved this way. Regarding to climate change, digital technology (for example artificial intelligence) might be beneficial in finding new solutions. Looking at current statistics of CO2 emissions due to digital technology puts us however straight down to earth: in fact, digital activities emit as much carbon dioxide as the whole aviation industry. For sure, CO2 emissions from aviation are more socially unjust as only 11% of the world population used planes before the pandemic compared to 63 % using the internet probably on an almost day to day basis. But this doesn’t hide the fact that also our current use of digital technology is a problem in fighting climate change. Most of the emissions of digital technology are due to manufacturing of digital devices. Despite this dark side of digital technology, we produce, use and discard working devices as if there was no tomorrow. Currently, the average lifespan of a smartphone is less than 2 years in the EU. The very easy solution of extending the lifespan of a device from 1 to 4 years would however reduce its environmental impact by 40 %. If we continue like we do now, we will face shortages of some critical resources to build batteries for laptops, phones or cars in already 6 years. This time is too short to start research about alternatives and implement it.
Amael discussed the urgency of this topic with other students at Zero Emission Group, a student group at EPFL, and then started the working group “digital sobriety”. The goal of “digital sobriety” is to reduce the over-consumption of digital products and services to a normal and sustainable level. By disconnecting and re-establishing a rational use of digital consumption, the dependency on critical resources, energy consuming technology and digital is reduced. This will drastically lower the environmental footprint.
Making IT sustainable has multiple issues according to Amael: First, measurements which are needed to take measurable action are lacking. Until around 5 years ago, IT was used without asking which impact it might have on the environment. Second, in contrast to air traffic, the digitals are used by almost everyone at any time. “Everyday habits are much more difficult to change than punctual behaviour. We can already see it with the difficulty of changing food behaviours.” says Amael. Third, companies are reluctant to embrace digital sobriety as on first sight, the reduction of consumption does not seem to promise better sales.
However, rationalizing digital consumption can lead to strong business advantages: The company Weather Force, for example, uses a strong artificial intelligence (AI) model for precipitation forecasts in remote areas worldwide, a service important for many farmers in these regions of the world. Originally, their services were only accessible via app leading to dependence on digital technology. By replacing the app with village community subscriptions and trusting on local dissemination strategies, Weather Force was able to increase the number of customers, reduce its reliance and dependency on digital technology and strongly increase their economic performance. This was very helpful in remote areas where neither internet connection nor the access to smartphones is given to everyone.
After forming the “digital sobriety group”, the EPFL students wanted to know how much environmental impact their university produces. A difficult task considering that no one had such an ambition before and no infrastructure was given for such an attempt. However, the group initiated, measured and wrote the first report to calculate the impact of EPFL’s data centers and devices. The group made two main observations: First, quite unexpectedly, data centers – usually in focus for being very energy-consuming and therefore most targeted by sustainability campaigns – don’t actually contribute most to EPFL’s CO2 digital footprint. Instead, the highest impact seems to stem from the number of digital devices each person has. On average, EPFL owns 3 computers per staff member. The second observation is that at the moment, computers are bought randomly and there is no information on the real need of computers in each scientific domain. It is especially the acquisition of new computers that has the highest impact on the environment and therefore needs to be optimised. One of the recommendations in the report is to establish a central power at EPFL that would be responsible for establishing a system to track and acquire new technological devices. This way overinvestment in technological products can be reduced.
The report – peer-reviewed by academic and industry experts – got published and first action by EPFL was taken: an “act for change” competition with the goal of changing one’s habit was launched in November 2021 and EPFL promised to hire an expert for sustainability in IT. But the change did not only stay within EPFL: Amael was contacted to do similar analyses and recommendations for other companies and universities. This led him to co-found Resilio – a company providing these services.
While companies and schools will slowly change, more immediate action will be required and this is when everyone comes into play. I asked Amael what he would recommend everyone to mitigate their environmental impact that comes from the digital. His answer comes swiftly and clearly: “Keep your electronic devices as long as possible and if you need a new one, get a second-hand one. Most people have too many unused devices at home. You will reduce your environmental impact significantly.”
Fact check:
Baldé, C.P., Forti V., Gray, V., Kuehr, R., Stegmann,P. : The Global E-waste Monitor – 2017, United Nations University (UNU), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) & International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), Bonn/Geneva/Vienna.
Fraser, J., Anderson, J., Lazuen, J., Lu, Y., Heathman, O., Brewster, N., Bedder, J. and Masson, O., Study on future demand and supply security of nickel for electric vehicle batteries, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-76-29139-8, doi:10.2760/212807, JRC123439
Gössling, S. & Humpe, A. The global scale, distribution and growth of aviation: Implications for climate change. Glob. Environ. Chang. 65, 102194 (2020).
https://datareportal.com/global-digital-overview
For reading the full EPFL report, visit: Zero Emission Group
For visiting Amael’s company: Resilio-Solutions
Thanks a lot to Anna Näger and Chloé Morel for editing and proof-reading.
Head photo provided by Markus Spiske on unsplash .
