5 min read
Have you ever wondered if there’s a connection between climate change and the digital world? Here’s what we have discovered.
Many people are under the assumption that the internet is green by default.
After all, blogs and online media have been replacing print newspapers, saving trees, thereby reducing usage of fossil fuels. Surely sending an email, searching for your favorite restaurant, sharing a picture on Instagram or uploading a YouTube video should have only a negligible environmental impact, since it only has a moderate amount of impact on our electricity bill?
It’s true, your internet connection and all your electronic devices may only account for about 5% of your total energy use. However, we also have to take into account the vast number of server farms running 24x7 to keep the Internet running.
Based on Greenpeace estimations for 2017, the IT sector consumed around 7% of global electricity. Taking into account the threefold increase in global Internet traffic since then, the Internet’s environmental footprint is expected to rise.
Most of the emissions come from data centers - facilities that are used to house servers and computer systems.
As consumers, we don’t have direct control over how a company runs its data center, but we can make a difference through supporting companies that choose to power their data centers with renewable energy.
A large portion of carbon emissions also come from our digital habits.
By storing our photos online, publishing a Facebook post or a website, binge watching our favorite Netflix shows, we pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Every device connected to the Internet requires electricity to host, stream, and interact with.
A single email with a photo attachment can generate approximately 50 grams of CO2.
While it might seem that our individual contribution doesn’t account for much, it all adds up. The Internet is used by approximately 4.1 billion people, or 53.6% of the global population of this planet. Considering how fast the Internet has been growing, it’s likely to generate billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually in the near future.
This wouldn’t have been such a problem if the internet was powered by renewable energy. For example, Google has been using a mixture of renewable energy and carbon offsetting to reduce its carbon footprint.
Google’s environmental report highlighting sustainability efforts across their data centers.
Unfortunately, only 17 percent of US electricity comes from renewable sources. There are many reasons why this happens, which will be the topic of future posts.
There’s something we designers can do, too. Sustainable Web design is all about being mindful of the impact of the products they design on the planet. If you are reading this, hopefully you will join us!