“Digital and Sustainability” is not like “Q and U”

Digital transformation of the last few decades has reshaped our world, but is digital always more sustainable? Here I dive into the myths and realities of technology's impact on our people and planet.

I’m intrigued by the idea of “digital sustainability” which seems to be all the rage these days. I always thought that the phrase referred to the repair, reuse and recycle aspects of digital devices. Growing up in Kolkata, India (or is it Bharat these days?), I encountered several “electronics repair” shops that we would regularly frequent to fix broken radios, cassette players, TV’s, VCR’s, you name it. Only if the cost of repair came alarmingly close to the new purchase option, was there a decision to make. That was sustainability back then. Fast forward several decades to 2018, when I had the privilege of taking our Executive MBA class on a study trip to Shenzhen, China, as part of which we visited the Huaqiangbei market – the largest electronics and digital devices market in the world! Spanning 200,000 square meters and several city blocks, this place is a haven not just for buying new and refurbished devices, but also repairing any electronic (digital or analog) device! That’s sustainability in action, I proudly told my students.  

But it turns out that my view is too restrictive, and that the common understanding of the phrase “digital sustainability” today is that digital is always more sustainable than analog or offline. Knowing my distaste for jargon, suffice it to say that everything we do with computers, laptops, cell phones, … which includes sending and receiving emails, watching streaming content, connecting on social media, is all digital.  In this blog, I want to bring the sustainability lens to digital technology and explore that assumption to congratulate where it is true and raise awareness where it is false. Digital technologies come with ecological and social trade-offs that aren’t obvious on the surface.

For instance, this blog, which took hours to research and write, and is sent out to the over 1,000 of you that are subscribed, produced around 50kg of CO2 emissions! “Free” certainly has a price to the planet!

First, I’d like to explore the digital transformation of the last few decades and compare our lives then verses now. Next, I will compare the digital myths with reality, especially considering power consumption, e-waste, and digital hoarding. Lastly, I will suggest what you can do to be more sustainable in our ever-changing world!

The Technological Revolution

It’s no understatement to say that everything has changed over the last 40 years. In January 1983 Time magazine named its 1982 “man” of the year: the IBM Personal Computer, a brand-new luxury product which was transforming the way people communicated, worked, and lived. It cost the 2023 equivalent of $5,000 USD, maxed out at 256KB of memory, and took up an entire desk and dedicated power supply. In 2018, the US Census found that 92% of households had at least one type of device – smartphone, laptop, tablet, etc. – and that over half of households were “highly connected;” owning a smartphone, a computer, a tablet, and a high speed internet connection. I’m sure that all of you reading this can relate to having more devices than you even use sitting around your home.

Now, all these devices allow us to read the news, conduct research, publish, and write back and forth without consuming paper in the process – must add up to a big ecological savings, right? Well, not so fast. Globally, paper consumption has increased – alarmingly so – up 400% in the last 20 years and still growing. The worldwide paper industry is the fifth largest consumer of consumer of energy, accounting for 4% of the world’s energy use, and is responsible for nearly half of the world’s logging efforts.

Paper is traditionally identified with reading and writing, and those uses have indeed declined, but they have been replaced by even more prolific packaging uses. A few industries have held onto their traditional paper-consuming roots: the Judiciary, Academia, and Commercial Marketing. As an academic, I am saddened, yet not surprised, to learn in this study that paper printed for thesis reports and examinations alone dwarfs almost all the paper used for business activities. All this paper consumption has devastating ecological consequences at every step of production: deforestation during harvesting, pollution during manufacturing, and pollution buildup and methane gas release when improperly discarded.

In a similar acceleration, the amount of digital “print” has grown even greater, with internet usage increasing by 1,355% from 2000 to 2023; growing at about 70 terabytes per second. The size of the internet doubles every two years and it consumes roughly 4% of the electricity in the world; equivalent to Germany’s electricity consumption.

I was apprehensive that the switch from paper to digital, in terms of sustainability impact, might be more complicated than it first appeared, because I teach my students a case on Axel Springer. The company, originally founded in 1946, grew to become one of Germany’s largest daily newspapers, with circulation throughout Europe. In the 1990s, under pressure from environmental activists, the company took a closer look at its paper value chain from raw materials to production to use and finally to disposal. The company made changes: sourcing from more sustainably grown wood, establishing recycling protocols, and delving into digital delivery through the internet. This company understood and respected its paper supply chain and was managing sustainability effectively. However, the switch to digital came with an unforeseen social sustainability tradeoff: conflict minerals. Many of the metals, minerals, and rare elements necessary in the manufacture of digital devices are often harvested in the world’s conflict zones (e.g., the Democratic Republic of Congo) where child labor, slave labor, and violent and inhumane working conditions make the “inexpensive” final product cost possible. This is true for devices built for personal use, but also for the devices that are used in mass deployment in data centers worldwide. Axel Springer took efforts to scrutinize its digital supply chain to the same degree as its paper supply chain, and governments have implemented policies to reduce this reality, such as the SEC’s disclosure requirements, but the reality of conflict minerals still exists. How much do we hear about it?

These “social hotspots” have profound effects on the supply chain, ethics, and the final cost of everyday electronics. (Althaf et al. 2020)

Digital Myths and Reality

Some companies have been promoting the digital transition – and the tremendous benefits that can be obtained – without discussing the greater nuance and potential downsides. There are both Pros and Cons which I want to explore as a cautionary tale.

As I’ve discussed with personal devices, the environmental impact of paper savings is often offset by the environmental and social impact of the raw materials used to build the digital device, and the CO2 cost of the supply chain to get it into your home.

Expanding the scope, when work is saved to “the cloud” it’s really just saved to another person’s computer. That computer is often a large data center. Increasingly, we don’t just save files to data centers, but they also provide tremendous computational power behind-the-scenes. For instance, every Google search or ChatGPT question, which is a quick typing and waiting experience on the user end, requires lots of electricity and computational power to return with such speed. While still in its infancy, ChatGPT alone uses about 1 GWh of electricity per day answering questions – as much as that consumed  by 33,000 US households. All of that electricity generates heat, which results in ChatGPT “drinking” the equivalent of a standard bottle (16.9oz or 500mL) of water in cooling every 20-50 questions. All this energy and water use adds up. Think about the hundreds of millions of queries every day. Once one considers the impact of all the digital “conveniences” – Google, Bing, Amazon, Facebook, etc. – the results aren’t as green as advertised. Globally, the “modern” tech industry has as much CO2 emissions as the “old” aviation industry.

Digging deeper, much of the electricity used to power our personal devices and the large data centers comes from fossil fuel sources. One day this will be a non-issue when renewable energy generation dominates the grid. But, for the time being, this impact must be considered. All of that electricity is also stored, short term, on lithium-ion batteries. These batteries, while incredibly useful, were never designed for such wide-spread deployment and carry some dangers. They degrade over time which lessens their storage capacity and increases the risk of spontaneous chemical fire. They are comprised of toxic materials which can leech into the environment if not properly sealed or disposed of. There is no industry standard for end-of-life disposal or recycling which has had devastating consequences for the places where this electronic waste ends up. One such place is my very home of Kolkata. The photos below wrench my heartstrings and fill me with responsibility – I want to understand the systems that resulted in this build up of “e-waste” and stop the cycle. (Photos by Swastik Pal, hosted on the BBC.)

Discarded e-waste collects in small villages, like Sangrampur, 45km (28 miles) south of Kolkata. Piles are sorted and picked apart to salvage useful components for resale and reuse.

Components that can’t be salvaged build up in huge dump piles that have become an increasingly common sight. These piles are full of sharp edges, plastics, lithium, mercury, rare earth metals, and synthetic chemical coolants, glues, and conductors – all of which make the environment hazardous and toxic.

Components extracted from the dismantled e-waste which can be used are sold at roadside shops and popular second-hand markets. The locals preserve the sustainability I remember – routers, TVs, and laptops are never thrown out. They are repaired for a low cost with wires and components from these stalls. Some sellers even fully assemble new electronics from the old parts and make an honest living producing goods that wealthier countries throw out without a second thought.

How to be Digitally Sustainable

One of the first actions anyone can do to improve their own digital sustainability is to reduce consumption. This comes in two senses: the physical hardware and the data and software. When purchasing new electronic devices, purchase with thorough intention. Critically assess whether you need the new device and what value it will bring to your life, and in turn, the world. Also assess the reputation of the manufacturer and the supply chain which likely created this product. Look around for refurbished, second-hand products, or brainstorm creative reuses to solve your needed use-case. Remember that planned and perceived product obsolescence are two of the tried and tested strategies that marketers use to get us to throw away functioning products and buy new ones, so don’t fall for them. If you must buy a new product, or bring a device into your life, establish a repair plan and an end-of-life plan: identify electronic repair centers and electronics recycling centers in your area and follow through with delivering to them when the time comes.

These actions will help to reduce the environmental impacts of new digital devices and lessen the demand for rare minerals.

In terms of data and software, “digital hygiene” is key to sustainability. Regularly go through, sort, clean up, and delete unwanted files. This will not only help you to find your files faster but will elongate the lifespan of your devices and digital spaces. Remember that each email you send has a CO2 footprint – so, please cut out those conversations that are not relevant. I recognize this is much easier said than done. I myself am guilty of spending hundreds of dollars increasing my Google Drive storage rather than spending time combing through my data. Do I really need to save all 20 versions of the same picture, which were taken in the hopes of getting the one perfect one? Altogether, how much of my own data is “wasted space”, whether stored on my own devices or in data centers? Imagine all the electricity and cooling required to keep this junk intact. Going further: how much of my loose data is being collected by data broker companies and sold for a profit? One should protect their own data to keep from becoming a product themselves.

In some cases, the digital option is the more sustainable one. A Zoom meeting is much more environmentally friendly than having its participants dress up and fly or drive to a central point for an hour of talking. But the process goes further: some Zoom meetings could be replaced by an email, or even eliminated altogether with process restructuring.

For businesses, these lessons amplify. Being purpose-driven goes a long way. As much larger consumers of physical products and digital services than any individual or household, leadership bears a responsibility to monitor and minimize their company’s footprints on the earth. Empower employees to conduct business through the sustainability lens. Evaluate alternative options to choose the more sustainable one - across the entire value chain. Think critically when a marketeer approaches your company offering new devices to all your staff – is this product necessary? Will a second-hand or refurbished version do the same trick? In the case of digital systems and services – again, will this actually be useful? Or result in wasted computing power for no reason? Very importantly, does your company understand, and abide by, local recycling and disposal policies?

For regulators, there are two key responsibilities to ensure digital sustainability. The first is to make sure that policies are keeping pace with technology and research. Standardization, compatibility, and repair-ability are essential to elongating the life of digital devices and ensuring that they don’t wind up in e-waste piles. The second key action is to disseminate timely and accurate information. In our modern world, which moves fast and strains the “attention economy”, consumers and companies are easily misled and often fall behind on best practices. Appropriate regulatory agencies (e.g., the Federal Trade Corporation, and local municipalities) should strive to keep everyone informed and aware of how technology can be beneficial, how it can be harmful, and how to navigate the ever-changing landscape.

In sum, the digital transformation has radically changed the world and improved it for the better. The world has instant access to information and the best minds can apply their talents globally. We are able to create work, and culture, and connections like never imagined! However, there is always room for improvement. We should be aware of the trade-offs of digital technology and continue to push for improved sustainability in all aspects of life. Together we have a voice, and our small actions compound into big differences!

Thank you for reading!

Research assistance for this blog was provided by Alexander T. de Almeida.

Copyright © CB Bhattacharya, 2023. All rights reserved.

Join the conversation below. Like and leave a comment on this blog.