How green is the internet?

At the latest since the pandemic, the internet has become the main "means of transport" in public life. Offices and classrooms are deserted, while previously rather sparsely used digital opportunities, such as platforms like Microsoft Teams or Zoom, are booming. What used to be held face-to-face is now done digitally, via video call or the like. At first glance, this appears to be a great relief and advantage for the climate, because businessmen no longer fly to Hong Kong to confirm the deal, and commuters no longer crowd the streets. Overall, traffic and thus CO2 emissions seem to be decreasing. Good for the climate, isn't it? But what is often forgotten is that our digital activities also leave a CO2

footprint. Due to the invisibility of the processes that take place - people only type on a computer or smartphone - it is forgotten that electricity is also used for this, and the data have to be processed, which means that C02 is emitted.

One of the latest studies by Grand Farber from the University of Michigan has investigated this, and the results are shocking: six hours of Zoom meetings with many participants cause around 1,324 kg of CO2 emissions. That is the equivalent of driving almost 3,300 miles or burning 750 kilograms of coal. That sounds a lot, but it still proved online meetings to be more environmentally friendly than "real" conferences, which on average produce about 66 times more carbon. At the conference studied, the majority of emissions (64 per cent) came from data transfer on the network, while only 11 per cent were due to actual computer use.

These figures illustrate the growing energy demand of the global information infrastructure and the C02 footprint we create as a result. And this is precisely where the core problem lies: it is not only videoconferencing but digitalisation itself that is increasing the amount of data.

Video streaming is replacing television, and Amazon is replacing the traditional shop; the examples can continue indefinitely. These new data streams are largely processed by data centres, which form the backbone of the modern internet. So as the demand for these data centres increases so does their power consumption. This is a problem considering that these data centres are operated with traditionally generated energy from nuclear power plants, etc. But if we are to switch to renewable energies in the future, the world's electricity consumption must decrease to guarantee the supply. This is because renewable energies are more "unpredictable", as the wind does not follow the electricity demand.

However, there are a few simple steps that each individual can take to make their internet consumption more sustainable: For example, a first step would be to reduce the video quality when streaming, turn off video when making online calls, or ensure that the house is using renewable energy. Carbon offset programmes, such as Plantyflix, a subscription service that invests in tree planting through monthly payments, can offset the estimated carbon emissions of monthly Netflix use. However, as is often the case, the main responsibility for truly sustainable digitisation lies with governments and technology companies, which must ensure that devices and data centres are operated as energy-efficiently as possible in the future.

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