Steps towards sustainability, Minimising digital carbon footprint (GS Paper 3, Environment)
Context:
- India has the highest carbon emissions growth rate among the world’s major global warming contributors.
- Recent years have witnessed the highest-ever time spent on electronic devices, making it essential to urgently address the increasing “digital carbon footprint” from these actions.
- Digital India’s plan to digitalise the nation further increases the significance of addressing the effects of utilising technology.
What is Digital carbon footprint?
- Digital carbon footprint is an aggregate of the emissions created by the lifecycle of a device or software, including its creation, usage, and maintenance.
Sources of digital carbon footprint
- The first stage is the production of hardware devices, such as laptops, phones and microprocessors, when the machines that manufacture devices generate significant carbon dioxide.
- The devices used to create, operate and maintain software also require electricity. The source of electricity for charging contributes to the carbon footprint; if the electricity has non-renewable origins, the emissions generated every time a phone is charged add to its digital carbon footprint.
- Research conducted in 2021 reflected that global smartphone charging releases more than 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in one year.
Software:
- The software used on devices is stored and maintained in large data centres requiring an intensive and steady electrical supply to prevent system failures.
- According to a 2022 International Energy Agency report, data centres contribute 1-1.5 percent of global electricity use, equalling the “total electricity consumption of Germany and Japan combined.”
- Moreover, data storage facilities also require electricity for massive cooling systems to ensure that the servers and storage devices work optimally.
Carbon emission by Google search:
- Every step in the life cycle of a digital entity consumes energy and therefore has a carbon footprint. For example, a single Google search creates 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, Google searches contribute to 18,00,000 kilograms of carbon emissions per day due to the energy consumption of its underlying systems that enable searches.
- Google’s offices, Cloud services, and devices combined emitted more than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2020. Google has pledged to go green and aims to “operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy” by 2030.
Initiatives by Apple:
- Companies like Apple are also working to decarbonise their global supply chain by 2030 by improving energy efficiency, creating low-carbon designs, and becoming carbon neutral for corporate operations.
- These efforts are reflected by the reduction in the company’s carbon emissions by 40 percent between 2015 and 2022.
- Furthermore, Apple’s endeavours support its claim to have a 100 percent carbon-neutral supply chain and products by 2030 and reduce 75 percent of its emissions by then.
- However, such efforts by individual organisations are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement goal of reducing emissions by 45 percent by 2030.
Government intervention and legislation:
- Government intervention is necessary to meet global goals, as seen in legislated emission reductions in certain nations. Such legislative mandates drive the efforts of tech organisations.
- For example, Apple’s efforts for reduced carbon footprint are inspired by the United States (US) National Climate Task Force, which works toward “achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050”.
- The Netherlands also called for a “49 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels” in the nation’s Climate Act.
- Similar acts and policies in regions like Denmark and the United Kingdom address carbon footprint reduction and compel tech organisations to reduce carbon emissions.
Eco labels:
- Other initiatives, such as the Power Savings Guide established by the Indian Ministry of Power’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), also target technology emissions.
- A primary component of this programme is the energy efficiency label for electronic devices to allow consumers to make informed purchase decisions.
- The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) offer a similar Energy Star programme. These certifications, known as eco-labels, are components of a broader solution to digital carbon footprint reduction called ‘green computing.’
Green Computing:
- Green Computing focuses on improving energy efficiency and minimising the environmental impact of computer systems to create a lower digital carbon footprint for the production and consumption of hardware and software.
- One of the most critical contributors to digital carbon footprint is the source of electricity used for powering an electronic device. Thus, governmental initiatives aiming to improve the proportion of renewable electricity in national supply are critical to reduce emissions.
- India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) particularly focuses on this contributor to carbon footprint.
Clean Energy Charging:
- The private sector is also pursuing such developments—for example, Apple’s iOS 16.1 and its provision called “Clean Energy Charging”.
- This provision gives an iPhone a forecast of the carbon emissions of the user’s local energy grid and uses this forecast to charge the iPhone when the source of electricity generated is greener, reducing the phone’s digital carbon footprint. This facility is currently (July 2023) only available in the US.
Other initiatives:
- The Green Software Foundation (GSF), for instance, provides research, tools, and code for building applications with lower footprints and offers frameworks to create applications that do more when the electricity comes from clean, low-carbon sources.
- Eco-labels, like Energy Star and BEE, also provide information allowing developers and users to reduce their digital carbon footprint.
- The private sector has made significant progress with the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) and TCO Certified, as well as developing eco-labels focused on software sustainability.
- Governments could support these organisations or integrate such labels with their own. Such integration would provide holistic, accurate information about the footprints of electronic devices to consumers.
Gaps:
- The UN Environment Programme Emissions Gap Report 2022 details how India’s carbon emissions policy, as of 2022, will do little to reduce its national carbon footprint. It is, therefore, paramount to address problems with high digital carbon footprints and invest in solutions at individual, organisational, and national levels.
- The government could support private sector solutions and integrate governmental initiatives with the industry to standardise the best practices for minimising digital carbon footprint.
- Regulating green computing in ESG reporting for companies would improve private sector accountability.
Awareness drive:
- Furthermore, education on digital carbon footprint should be promoted to maximise awareness and foster habit changes among citizens to reduce individual digital carbon footprint.
- The introduction of a course on green computing by the University of Mumbai must be replicated nationwide.
- Since the primary challenge with green computing solutions is increased cost, governments should aim to work alongside companies at the forefront of this practice, such as Microsoft and IBM.
- Sharing insights with industry research and development and pre-existing consumer support could reduce the investments required to scale up best practices among individuals and organisations.
Way Forward:
- Significant progress can be made to reduce India’s carbon emissions by merely acknowledging the extent of its digital carbon footprint and framing policies for its reduction.
