Forgot Password?
Written by Gregory Iwahashi   
Share |
Thursday, 01 December 2011

ICT and the Environment

Information communication technology (ICT), better known as Information Technology (IT) is all around us. While the internet is the vehicle that transports ICT, ICT is really what we as users interact with. It includes everything from telecommunications, computer processing, data sharing, and all types of virtual information sharing or storage. The expansive networks and channels of communication that ICT has ushered in, have revolutionized how businesses and the world share information with one another.1

What does ICT have to do with climate change?

ICT has become one of the 21st century’s biggest industries and accordingly will have a huge carbon foot print. According to the Smart 2020 report, the ICT industry will emit 1.4 Gigatons (10^9) of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, or 2.8% of global emissions by 2020.2 On the flip side, many people are looking towards ICT as a solution to climate change. By being fully integrated into other industries, ICT will decrease projected emissions by 7.8 Gigatons of CO2 emissions or 15% of global levels.3

How will ICT decrease CO2 emissions? Quoting United Nations General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim, “ICT will be instrumental in helping to develop new, climate-friendly technologies that can help economies grow sustainably and reduce emissions in the years ahead.”4 While ICT may have many different ways of addressing the climate change issue, most of the largest impacts can be categorized into one of the following groups:

Infrastructure innovation:

ICT will most likely have the most immediate and significant impact in this sector. Infrastructure in this discussion includes buildings, utilities, the electric or smart grid , and many of the biggest energy consuming parts of the working world. Smart buildings, for example, will use ICT to implement highly energy efficient technology standards that can save 1.7 Gigatons of CO2 emissions in 2020.5 Additionally, ICT is a vital element in creating the smart grid that can potentially save 2 Gigatons of CO2 in 2020.6 On the larger scale, implementing ICT successfully will allow current and future technologies to integrate and harness climate mitigating technology.7

Material displacement and behavior change:

Material displacement or dematerialization coincides directly with behavior change. As virtualization of the workplace and home become a more prevalent, our reliance on physical activities and objects diminshes.8 Imagine an immaterial economy where everyone worked from home, used cloud computing, and online buying. There would be less need for transportation services, hardware and software manufacturing, and ultimately result in streamlining the goods that are actually produced.9 ICT will effectively reduce the dependence individuals have on transportation services through the use of virtual meetings, telecommuting, and online services as a technological replacement for physically being on-site.10

Once the dematerialization of our world becomes more prevalent, this newfound access to information and convenience will spur behavioral changes. Along these lines, ICT will create unprecedented information availability that is expected to promote both changes in how homeowners use energy and also how commerce, such as purchasing goods, will be done. These new information channels seem abstract, but already the instances of e-commerce, energy tracking applications, and webinars are a few of the examples commonly found in the workplace.11;12

Energy efficiency of ICT industry and future energy solutions:

The ICT industry alone is growing at an alarming rate as both companies and countries alike are ramping up their access, availability, and need for information. However, this growth in ICT also creates a large projected footprint that could damage the credibility of ICT as part of the climate change solution. The good news is that by creating energy efficiency data centers, electronics, and solutions that increase the energy efficiency of ICT, the industry can reduce its footprint.13 While this may seem like a small piece of the pie, smart motor systems alone are projected to save 1Gt of CO2 emissions in 2020. Additionally, smart logistics that improve transportation and information storage can net 1.5 Gt of CO2 emissions.14 Most importantly, once the ICT industry has in essence “cleared” its name, it can be more widely accepted and acknowledged as a real climate change solution across many different industry sectors.

Challenges to ICT

In the case of almost all new technologies, integration and industry uptake are largely dependent on market drivers for implementation. ICT represents a host of energy and climate change solutions that ultimately depend on economics and policy for widespread implementation. Additionally, people and politicians will have to strike a delicate balance between implementing ICT quickly and implementing it efficiently. This draws perfectly from the example of LED vs. CFL lighting and how technology is limited to taking small steps to hedge against new innovation.15 With most technologies there is hesitation to implement a technology that could tomorrow be obsolete; the way to overcome this is to make ICT as important as a computer. While computer efficiency doubles every two years, people still purchase computers everyday knowing tomorrow they will be outdated. The goal is to make ICT attractive enough for consumers to take action now.

However, the industry itself also suffers from public relations disasters. ICT initially became popular for cost effectiveness and convenience, but it now has much greater utility to the world. The problem is that the ICT sector has focused on clearing its own carbon footprint problems instead of offering solutions to other industries for doing the same. Speaking to this misconception, many industries consider ICT as a productivity enhancer, not an energy efficiency tool. In order for ICT to be respected as a true game changer to the climate change solution, the ICT industry must educate politicians and industries across the board on the potential of this technology.

Where ICT stands now looking forward: Already there are a multitude of technologies that are increasing energy efficiency, promoting behavior change, and mitigating climate change. Teleworking programs, smart meters, cloud computing, data storage efficiency increases, and mandated energy efficiency building standards are a few of the most widely accepted ICT solutions.16 However, the need for policy action, standardization, and most importantly industry endorsement will be vital to the widespread integration of this technology in the future. The ICT Industry itself plays an important mediatory role in shifting our way of life to a world of low carbon emissions and sustainability.

Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communications_technology
2 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/docs/
    consultations/advisory_group_reports/ad-hoc_advisory_group_report.pdf
3 http://www.gesi.org/Initiatives/ClimateChange/tabid/71/Default.aspx
4 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=24815&Cr=climate&Cr1=change
5 http://www.gesi.org/Initiatives/ClimateChange/tabid/71/Default.aspx
6 Id.
7 http://www.unapcict.org/ecohub/resources/the-contribution-of-ict-to-climate-change-mitigation
8 http://www.gesi.org/Initiatives/ClimateChange/tabid/71/Default.aspx
9 http://www.euractiv.com/climate-change/ict-and-climate-
    change-problem-or-solution-linksdossier-188492
10 http://www.ictandclimatechange.com/page24.htm
11 http://www.euractiv.com/climate-change/ict-and-climate-
    change-problem-or-solution-linksdossier-188492
12 http://www.ictandclimatechange.com/page24.htm
13 http://www.unapcict.org/ecohub/resources/the-contribution-of-ict-to-climate-change-mitigation
14 http://www.gesi.org/Initiatives/ClimateChange/tabid/71/Default.aspx
15 http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/sustainable_growth/docs/
    consultations/advisory_group_reports/ad-hoc_advisory_group_report.pdf
16 http://www.euractiv.com/climate-change/ict-and-climate-
    change-problem-or-solution-linksdossier-188492



Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 01 December 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.