While the environmental impact of digital is increasingly singled out, a new study conducted jointly by Arcep and ADEME highlights the preponderant weight of the production of terminals in the ecological bill of the sector. According to this study, published on Wednesday, digital – which today represents 3 to 4% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 2% of the national carbon footprint – could see its carbon footprint climb to 6 .7% by 2060 if nothing is done to limit it.
As revealed by the study carried out by Arcep and ADEME, the carbon footprint currently generated by one year of consumption of digital goods and services in France currently represents 2.5% of the total annual carbon footprint of France, i.e. 16.9 Mt CO2. A significant weight, which puts digital ahead of the waste sector in terms of impact on our carbon footprint.
At the individual level, this footprint corresponds to 253 kg CO2 eq. per year and per French. An environmental impact which owes above all to the consumption of electricity induced for the manufacture and use of digital goods and services. This amounts to 48.7 TWh, or the equivalent of around 10% of France’s annual electricity consumption.
A very energy-intensive production
The devil, however, is in the details. In this case, while all the sectors that make up the digital ecosystem have an impact on the environment, it is the terminals – computers, screens, smartphones, connected objects – that are the most energy-intensive.
The latter thus account for 79% of the carbon footprint generated by digital technology in France, far ahead of data centers (over 16%) and networks (around 5%). The fact remains that if the weight of terminals in the digital ecological bill is so important, it is largely linked to their manufacturing phase, which represents 78% of the environmental footprint of the latter, while their use only represents 21% of their environmental liability.
Source: Arcep/ADEME.
There are two reasons for this. The manufacturing phase of digital goods is indeed very energy-intensive and requires energy mainly produced in countries with a high carbon energy mix, particularly in Asia or the United States. Secondly, digital equipment requires a large quantity of rare materials for their manufacture (gold, silver, copper or rare raw materials), the extraction process of which is itself very energy-intensive.
With regard to the impact of the use phase of digital goods and services, this is largely due to the electricity consumption it generates. It should be noted that the end of life of digital goods, as well as the distribution of goods and services, also has a certain environmental impact, even if it turns out to be less significant.
Smartphones, but not only…
Beyond popular belief, smartphones are not the only ones to be accused when it comes to their environmental impact. The authors of this study thus note that “if the impact of telephones is substantial, it is far from being the majority”. Thus, screens and audiovisual equipment take the palm of the most polluting terminals, ahead of computers, due to a very high rate of equipment among businesses and individuals.
And if connected objects currently represent less than 7% of the carbon footprint of terminals, their future adoption by the general public could well change the situation in the years to come. For their part, internet boxes have a marginal weight in the environmental bill of terminals, unlike televisions and computer screens.
The expensive nature of the manufacturing phase of terminals also applies to data centers. The weight of their manufacture in the ecological debt of data centers thus proves to be preponderant, as the authors of this study explain. For them, “the manufacturing phase concentrates the majority of impacts for the carbon footprint and natural abiotic resources (metals and minerals), whether for terminals or data centers”.
Cheaper networks?
Finally, telecommunications networks are also singled out for their environmental impact. They thus weigh for 5% of the environmental impacts of digital technology for the carbon footprint and the depletion of natural abiotic resources (minerals and metals) and a little more than 10% for the depletion of natural abiotic resources (fossils) and radiation ionizing.
An ecological invoice which owes especially, once is not habit, to their use, which represents 87% of their environmental impact, against 13 for their manufacture. It should be noted that if the fixed networks concentrate the majority of the impacts (between 75 and 90% of the impacts), “compared to the quantity of GB consumed on each network, the environmental impact of the fixed networks becomes lower than that of the mobile networks”. Mobile networks that have almost three times more impact than fixed networks per GB of data consumed, report the authors of this study.
Still, measures, at the collective and individual level, can be taken to limit the environmental impact of digital technology. Starting with the adoption of a less expensive digital lifestyle requiring increased attention to our consumption of digital goods and services, or even greater use of refurbished goods.