Mégsem annyira zöld a zöld IT?

Richard Hawkins, Canada Research Chair in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, says there is no evidence that information technologies necessarily reduce our environmental footprint. His research will provide input into the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) initiative on IT and sustainability at the Earth Summit in Copenhagen. “It was once assumed that there was little or no material dimension to information technology, thus, it should be clean with minimal environmental impact,” says Hawkins. “However, we are finding that reality is much more complicated.” Firstly, Hawkins notes that digital technologies require a lot of energy to manufacture and eventually they create a huge pile of ‘electronic junk’, much of it highly toxic. They also use a lot of energy to run. Some estimates are that they use up roughly the same amount of energy as the world’s air transport system. Far from denying these environmental implications, Hawkins points out that many IT producers are gearing up to produce ‘greener IT’, using the environmental footprint as a marketing tool. “But probably most of the negative environmental impacts occur in the form of completely unintended, second and third order effects,” he says. “These ‘rebound’ effects may not be mitigated by inventing 'greener' IT products and, indeed, may be intensified by such changes.” Rebounds occur when the use of IT contributes to or reinforces an increase in other activities that already have environmental effects. Hawkins says the problem is not that IT is inherently more or less green than other technologies. The problem is that it has been applied so extensively that its environmental implications—positive as well as negative—are often overlooked. Hawkins and his research team are establishing a more reliable basis for identifying and assessing the contribution of IT to our environmental footprint.

IT3 komment: Egyre többen kongatják az infokommunikációs technológiák környezetszennyező hatása miatti vészharangokat, s tűzik zászlajukra a tetszetős „zöld IT” jelszót. Egy kanadai kutatócsoport szerint a negatív környezeti hatások sokkal összetettebbek annál, mint ahogy a „zöld IT” szószólói sugallják. Hiába tervezünk környezetkímélő gépeket, ha a munkafolyamat mellékhatásai esetleg sokkal ártalmasabbak a kelleténél károsabbnak minősített, s ezért lecserélendő termékeknél.

Forrás: ucalgary.ca