#5 The Environmental Impact of our Digital Lives: Between optimization and over-connection

Time to Shift - English Edition

Have you ever wondered about the environmental impact of our current use of digital devices? Are green IT, dematerialised solutions, and optimisation any good?

The Shift Project looked at the environmental impact of digital technology in its Lean Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Report published at the end of 2018, followed by two more reports in 2019 and 2020. In all three reports, green IT turns out to be less promising than it seems.

In this episode, we discuss some of the key findings and conclusions of these reports.

All sources mentioned in the episode can be accessed with the links below:

- "Lean ICT: Towards Digital Sobriety" Report: https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/lean-ict-our-new-report/

- "Climate Crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video" (including the full report, educational video, guide and a browser extension / add-on which makes the invisible climate impact of web browsing visible): https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/unsustainable-use-online-video/

- "Implementing Digital Sufficiency" (note that an executive summary is available in English and the full report only in French): https://theshiftproject.org/en/article/implementing-digital-sufficiency/