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Digital technologies are often put forward as a solution to environmental dilemmas.
These materials also have to be mined, made or recycled.
Measuring digital eco-footprints
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The United Nations Environment Assembly defines adigital ecosystemas a complex distributed internet or interconnected socio-technological system.
Simply, digital ecosystems are the result of humans, digital infrastructure and devices interacting with one another.
They rely on energy consumption at multiple scales.
The term digital ecosystem relates to ecological thinking, specifically in terms of how human-technological systems work.
However, theres nothinginherentlyenvironmentally sustainable about digital ecosystems.
Its worthwhile considering digital ecosystems environmental impacts as they grow.
At that stage, it had reached 1.1 zettabytes (a zettabyte equals one trillion gigabytes).
As our digital use continues, so do our carbon emissions.
Dangers of data centers
Data centers majorly contribute to the carbon emissions of digital ecosystems.
They are basically factories that store, backup and recover our data.
Personal devices use another 34%, and the industries responsible for manufacturing them use 16%.
Also, on many occasions, they rely on carbon offsets to achieve this.
Offsets involve people and organizationsinvesting in environmental projectsto balance their carbon emissions from other activities.
For instance, people can buy carbon offsets when booking flights.
Apart from the obvioussocial and economic impacts, artificial intelligences (AI) environmental implications should be seriously considered.
Also, this figure only relates to training a large AI machine.
There are various other ways these machines suck energy.
According to theInternational Energy Agency, bitcoin mining uses more energy than some countries, including Austria and Colombia.
But we should still take responsibility for the impact of such systems.
Satellites are in space.
Wires run beneath footpaths, roads and oceans.
All the while, theInternet of Thingsis creeping into old technologies and transforming how we use them.
It assessed a range of corporations, including some managing digital platforms, and others hosting data centers.
Governments should provide a regulatory environment that demands greater transparency on how digital corporations use energy.
And holding these corporations accountable should include reporting on whether they are improving the sustainability of their practices.
One immediate step could be for corporations that produce digital devices to move away from planned obsolescence.
One example of this is when companiesincluding Apple and Samsungmanufacture smartphones that are not designed to last.
Digital sustainability is a useful way to frame how digital technologies affect our environmental world.
Only then can we start to effectively transition to a more sustainable future that also includes digital technologies.
This article is republished fromThe ConversationbyJessica McLean, Senior Lecturer in Geography,Macquarie Universityunder a Creative Commons license.
