Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The main outcome of this report has identified that the direct impact created by
ICTs is negative, the overall impact on environmental sustainability may vary,
depending on the applications and the aggregated effects of large numbers of people
and organisations using ICTs. The UK's target is to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050
and by at least 34% by 2020. Large organisations such as public sector bodies or
universities, where IT usage is extremely high find very difficult to reach these targets
without adopting a fundamentally different approach in their IT energy strategy. If
ICTs are to enable a decrease in absolute energy consumption, policy must also be
designed in order to promote the environmentally positive impacts of ICTs, whilst
inhibiting the negative ones [8].
Hilty et al. (2006) have developed a simulation study and a system dynamics
model based on systems representation, relationships, and decomposition shown in
figure 2. The simulation study combined scenario based demonstrations and expert
consultations for analysing the positive and negative impacts of ICT on environmental
sustainability [9]. The basic idea behind a systemic modeling approach has been the
development of conceptual bridges from the use of ICT in different economic sectors
to the environmental impact indicators (e.g. greenhouse emission, accounting for the
following three types of ICT impacts or effects [9], [10], [11], [12]:
1.
Primary impacts due to the effects of the physical existence and running of ICT
(environmental impacts of the production, use, recycling and disposal of the
hardware).
2.
Secondary impacts to the indirect environmental effects of ICT due to its power
to change processes (such as production or transport processes), resulting in a
modification (decrease or increase) of their environmental impacts.
3.
Low level impacts due to the environmental effects of the medium- or long-term
adaptation of behaviour (e.g. consumption patterns) or economic structures due to
the stable availability of ICT and the provided services.
However, due to some limitations of the system dynamics the results should not be
interpreted as forecasting the development of the environmental indicators, because
their absolute values in 2020 will greatly depend on the selected scenarios and on
different parameters used for modeling that could not accurately capture the
uncertainities. On the one hand, significant opportunities for improving environmental
sustainability are in the potential impact of ICTs on the rational use of heating energy,
and the support of decentralized electricity production from renewable sources and its
important role in the product-to-service paradigm shift. On the other hand, ICT
applications that make freight and passenger transport more time efficient (cheaper or
faster) will immediately create more traffic and possibly more energy consumption.
There is no empirical evidence for assuming anything other than a strong price
rebound effect here, which could have severe environmental consequences in terms of
energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
