Matthew Barton  30th April 2020

With data centres set to have a bigger carbon footprint than the whole aviation industry, smart technology’s benefits need urgent re-examination.

The embedded energy costs of communications technologies and voracious digital consumption are actually exacerbating global heating rather than helping prevent it, the recent Shift Project report, Lean ICT, Toward Digital Sobriety, suggests. 

The report recommends a shift from “intemperance to sobriety in our relationship with digital technologies”  – basically the idea that individuals and companies could self-limit their purchase and usage of equipment. But this clearly runs counter to the financial imperatives of the big tech companies and their marketing strategies. Read the full article at https://theecologist.org/2020/apr/30/smart-techs-carbon-footprint

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