This year comes into force a new government measure that requires operators to display the carbon footprint of their subscribers. This law aims to make users aware of the consequences of their data consumption and to favor WiFi when possible.
It is a more insidious pollution, because invisible to the naked eye. Watching a streaming video, scrolling on your favorite social network and even sending an email, all this requires the transfer of a large amount of data, itself stored on huge servers which, of course, consume a lot of energy. A notion still relatively unknown to the general public, although it has been making more and more noise in recent years.
It is notably the arrival of 5G who set fire to the powder. Several green mayors have expressed their desire to regulate the network to reduce its carbon footprint. In response, the government has implemented a new measure that you will witness directly on your monthly bill. Since January 1, 2022, operators must in fact display the amount of data consumed by the user, accompanied by “The greenhouse gas equivalent, expressed in grams, kilograms or tonnes for the largest consumers”, explains Michel Combot, president of the Telecoms Federation.
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Discover the carbon footprint of your data consumption
Through this measure, announced at the end of 2019 by the government, the latter therefore wishes to make the general public aware of the impact of their data consumption, a gesture which has now become part of our daily life and which we hardly pay attention to. According to Michel Combot, this will also encourage people to adopt more environmentally friendly reflexes, such as favor WiFi when you are indoors.
According to figures from Arcep, 2% of greenhouse gas emissions are to blame for digital. A figure that could climb to 7% a few years from now. “Each time we look for data, and in particular video streaming, which represents the largest part of the data flow passing through the networks, we call on material and energy resources, and therefore this generates emissions. of greenhouse gases’, explains Raphael Guastavi, head of digital and environment at ADEME.
However, this measure is far from unanimous. Gilles Babinet, vice-president of the National Digital Council, considers in particular that “Digital technology has a large number of positive externalities”, which therefore risk being erased in favor of its environmental impact. Elsewhere, some voices are beginning to rise, fearing the establishment of a new carbon tax indexed on Internet consumption.
Source: franceinfo