Season 3 has ended and we are planning our fourth season, to be launched next year. We are changing direction to help you and your business get ready for the sustainable transition. If you're ready to join us, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Welcome to another week of Shaken Not Burned! 

It’s undeniable that the Internet brings unique benefits to humanity: we are more connected, have access to nearly all the world’s knowledge, and can discover opportunities that we would have previously been privy to due to our location, social class, and economic status.

And, of course, there are many downsides, from misinformation, polarisation, and exploitation to screen addiction. One of the things that is less discussed is the environmental impact of its use, which can be as pernicious as it can be difficult to see.

The Internet and communication technology (ICT) sector accounts for an estimated 1.5-4% of the world’s carbon emissions. In comparison, aviation represented 2% of the global carbon footprint in 2022. Some of these emissions are driven by coal-generated electricity consumption by telecommunications operators as well as the use of fossil fuels to power network equipment, vehicles, and backup.

The good news is that these can be abated by switching to renewable energy, which is already happening in some sections of the ICT market. Amazon, Meta and Google were in the top four corporate clean energy buyers last year. The bad news is two-fold: demand is projected to rise exponentially, and emissions play only a part in the Internet’s overall impact on the environment.

As much as one-third of the world's population is not yet connected to the Internet, and they have every right to do so: this will require a significant scale-up of infrastructure and devices. Meanwhile, the use of artificial intelligence – which is massively energy-intensive – keeps skyrocketing. A staggering 90% of the world's data may have been generated in the last two years alone, a number predicted to rise as AI becomes more pervasive.

Emissions are only a part of the equation. Data centres require water to be cooled down, which can strain resources in drought-prone areas and whose use has already been described as “out of control”. Many of our devices are made of plastic, which is derived from fossil fuels, and require critical minerals such as lithium and copper, whose extraction can have immense social, environmental and health consequences.

This week we’re revisiting our conversations with Dr Tamara Kneese, a senior researcher and project director at Data & Society's Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab, and Sepas Seraj, founder of digital agency Pixeled Eggs.

Catch up with our previous episodes here:

• AI, sustainability and the tech industry with Data & Society's AIMLab

• Sustainable web design with Pixeled Eggs

Season 3 has ended and we are planning our fourth season, to be launched next year. We are changing direction to help you and your business get ready for the sustainable transition. If you're ready to join us, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.