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Innovations and efficiencies in digital technology have lately been depicted as paramount in the green transition to enable the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, both in the information and communica-tion technology (ICT) sector and the wider economy. This, however, fails to adequately account for rebound effects that can offset emission savings and, in the worst case, increase emissions. In this perspective, we draw on a transdisciplinary workshop with 19 experts from carbon accounting, digital sustainability research, ethics, sociology, public policy, and sustainable business to expose the chal-lenges of addressing rebound effects in digital innovation processes and associated policy. We utilize a responsible innovation approach to uncover potential ways forward for incorporating rebound effects in these domains, concluding that addressing ICT-related rebound effects ultimately requires a shift from an ICT efficiency-centered perspective to a "systems thinking"model, which aims to understand efficiency as one solution among others that requires constraints on emissions for ICT environmental savings to be realized.

Efficiency gains in economic processes often do not deliver the projected overall savings. Irrespective of whether the increase in efficiency saves energy, resources, time or transaction costs, there are various mechanisms that spur additional consumption as a consequence. These mechanisms are generically called rebound effects, and they are problematic from a sustainability perspective as they decrease or outweigh the environmental benefits of efficiency gains. Since one of the overarching purposes of digitalization is to increase efficiency, rebound effects are bound to occur frequently in its wake. Rebound effects of digitalization have been ignored until recently, but they have been increasingly studied lately. One particular mechanism of digital rebound, however, has been largely disregarded so far: the digitalization-induced lowered skill requirements needed to perform a specific activity. As with other types of rebound effects, this leads to an increase in the activity in question. In this paper, we propose the term skill rebound to denote this mechanism. We use the example of self-driving cars to show how digitalization can lower the skill bar for operating a vehicle, and how this opens 'driving' a car to entirely new socio-demographic categories such as elderly, children or even pets, leading to increased use of the (transportation) service in question and thus to rebound effects. We finally argue that these unintended environmental effects of skill rebound must be better understood and taken into account in the design of new digital technologies., QC 20210915

High expectations are placed on the ability of ICT to play an important role in reducing GHG emissions, now and in the future. Several calculations of such benefits were put forward over the last years, usually performed by the industry. Their methods and assumptions, however, remained often unspecified, and the assessments frequently led to hardly plausible claims. In this paper, we present the results of applying a stricter approach to one specific service - the detection of gas leakages in the US through gas sensors installed on Google street view cars, together with an advanced algorithm for translating the collected data to useful information on the location and magnitude of gas leakages. We further discuss a new set of four practical challenges for such assessments that were identified during this exercise, and which are new compared to previous theoretical work: the allocation between ICT and non-ICT sectors, practical challenges in defining the baseline, the usually polluted indirect data at hand, and issues of the generalisation to society-wide potentials. We then discuss to which extent these challenges can be addressed, and which of them are of a more fundamental nature., QC 20170130

The rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) has an influence on all societal sectors and can have both positive and negative consequences. To support ICT for sustainability (ICT4S), we need to learn when and how ICT can enable sustainable development. It is important to take into account all types of potential impacts environmental and social, direct and indirect. Looking at future ICT societies and their potential environmental and social implications is of special interest, as this can provide valuable knowledge for planning and policy-making today to enable ICT4S. A methodological framework for environmental and social assessment of future ICT societies with a consumption perspective was developed as a part of a joint project with researchers at KTH, ICT industry, municipality and county. The overall goal of the project was to develop five different future scenarios for Swedish ICT societies and to assess the risks and opportunities for environmental and social consequences in those scenarios. This paper presents the framework for environmental and social assessment of future scenarios and discusses the challenges experienced and lessons learned in the process of the framework development. The framework is aimed to deal with a broad and complex object and scope of assessment, the inherent uncertainty and data restrictions of future scenarios, and is applying qualitative analysis., QC 20151221

While the traditional roles of the computer as a machine for scientific calculations, text editing, and graphic design are still significant, computers are increasingly perceived as means of accessing information and interacting with other people – i.e., as electronic media. The aim of this chapter is to analyze digital electronic media and their effects on environmental sustainability. Two fields of application are addressed: electronic media that may replace or augment traditional print media such as newspapers or magazines, and videoconferencing as a potential substitute for traveling to a face-to-face meeting or conference. In both cases, the environmental costs of the electronic media are compared to those of their conventional counterparts. The examples show that electronic media can represent an energy-efficient alternative to traditional activities such as long-distance travel. But they can also be added on top of existing activities instead of replacing them. In such cases, a net increase in the environmental impact results. The availability of small, energy-efficient devices being used as electronic media does not guarantee dematerialization. The overall resource use and emissions throughout the life cycle of the media product systems and, more importantly, at the macro level of total global production and consumption need to be considered. To achieve the dematerialization potential of new electronic media solutions, their efficiency needs to be combined with sufficiency; thus additional measures are necessary to turn the dematerialization potential of electronic media into environmental relief.

Estimates of the energy intensity of the Internet diverge by several orders of magnitude. We present existing assessments and identify diverging definitions of the system boundary as the main reason for this large spread. The decision of whether or not to include end devices influences the result by 1-2 orders of magnitude. If end devices are excluded, customer premises equipment (CPE) and access networks have a dominant influence. Of less influence is the consideration of cooling equipment and other overhead, redundancy equipment, and the amplifiers in the optical fibers. We argue against the inclusion of end devices when assessing the energy intensity of the Internet, but in favor of including CPE, access networks, redundancy equipment, cooling and other overhead as well as optical fibers. We further show that the intensities of the metro and core network are best modeled as energy per data, while the intensity of CPE and access networks are best modeled as energy per time (i.e., power), making overall assessments challenging. The chapter concludes with a formula for the energy intensity of CPE and access networks. The formula is presented both in generic form as well as with concrete estimates of the average case to be used in quick assessments by practitioners. The following chapter develops a similar formula for the core and edge networks. Taken together, the two chapters provide an assessment method of the Internet's energy intensity that takes into account dierent modeling paradigms for dierent parts of the network.

Environmental assessments of digital services seeking to take into account the Internet’s energy footprint typically require models of the energy intensity of the Internet. Existing models have arrived at conflicting results. This has lead to increased uncertainty and reduced comparability of assessment results. We present a bottom-up model for the energy intensity of the Internet that draws from the current state of knowledge in the field and is specifically directed towards assessments of digital services. We present the numeric results and explain the application of the model in practice. Complementing the previous chapter that presented a generic approach and results for access networks and customer premise equipment, we present a model to assess the energy intensity of the core networks, yielding the result of 0.052kWh/GB.

QCR 20160607