Monday, February 01, 2021
Criticism of Google and Co.
The digital world is not climate friendly enough
Environment Minister Schulze wants the digital world to be significantly more climate-neutral in the future. Companies like Google should also be held responsible for this. Experts see the problem more in the consumer behavior of people in general.
Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze sees a lot of catching up to do on the way to a climate-friendly digital world. For this, "new structures would have to emerge" at different levels, said the SPD politician at an online conference. In order to achieve this goal, not only is every single citizen responsible, but also politics and global digital corporations such as Google.
These would have to create more transparency, for example by disclosing the ecological footprint of a search query or a cloud or streaming service, said Schulze. Search platforms should also enable their users to "search specifically for sustainable products".
The responsibility of tech companies is not limited to their own infrastructure, said Schulze. Google and Co. would also have to take responsibility "for the content that is distributed on their platforms".
"Sustainable options highlighted"
The US group Google emphasizes that it is trying to make its services sustainable. For example, when searching for flights, the respective CO2 balances would be displayed or sustainable options would be highlighted, said Google manager Urs Hölzle.
Tilman Satarius, Professor of Sustainable Digitization at the Technical University of Berlin, pointed out that, from the point of view of science, it is not enough to make digital services climate-neutral. Rather, consumer behavior must change overall. "Digitalization does lead to change, but it goes hand in hand with a higher energy intensity," said Satarius. It is therefore important to reduce energy consumption and not rely on more devices with clean electricity.
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