1/22/2018 Can the digital revolution be environmentally sustainable?

| Global | The Guardian

Can the digital revolution be environmentally sustainable?

The Guardian shares insights (and challenges) from their work to understand the carbon impacts
of digital media

Christopher Hodgson
Fri 13 Nov 2015 10.40 GMT

Our digital revolution

The digital revolution touches all aspects of our human and physical world in many varied and
constantly changing ways. Whether you wish to read the news, comment on line, watch a film, or
buy insurance. We are highly connected through data and this connection has the capacity to
empower citizens and enrich our lives.

It is easy to take for granted this digital ecosystem and it is hard to imagine a time before it. Yet as
an industry it is in its infancy when compared to printing or manufacture. And this is very clear
when one starts to investigate the ethical and environmental impacts of digital.

The industrial revolution took huge strides in advancing humanity, but it never intended to
pollute our rivers or air. At the Guardian we believe that we must start to ask how can we ensure
that the digital revolution will be environmentally sustainable? How can we produce sustainable
digital media?

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What is known?
The overall carbon emissions from the digital ecosystem is significant. For example global data
centres are estimated to equate to 2% of global emissions equal to the emissions from global
aviation. And with only a quarter of the world population on-line and our thirst for “expecting
anything, anytime, anywhere” will place greater pressure on our physical infrastructure and
planet.

For example, Andrew Ellis, professor of optical communications at Aston University stated that
8% of UK energy generation is used by the internet and it could consume all UK power by 2035.

Greenpeace have driven greater awareness around data centres and the internet and a number of
articles (Time, Telegraph, NY Times ) have highlighted the internet’s impacts on our natural
systems and existing infrastructure capacity. However, these are sporadic to say the least and tend
to focus on only one part of the digital ecosystem - data centres.

It is also difficult to find corporate reporting on digital environment impacts beyond their own
data centres. Exceptions include Alma Media and the Guardian.

What is the digital ecosystem for media?

The digital ecosystem is incredibly complicated and so is the media’s place in it. To understand
how we might create sustainable digital media products we first need to understand what
happens in the digital ecosystem when you access data.

What happens when you access data in the digital ecosystem?

Illustration: Guardian Graphics

As you use your laptop, tablet or smart phone, requests are sent from your device to a number of
different server computers that build the components of the page, ie the template, text, pictures,
video and adverts.

These requests are transferred through your Wi-Fi modem or the cellular network via your
internet service provider into the internet infrastructure or network and out to the server
computers, which return the data.

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The path your request takes depends on which device you use, as this determines the access-
network route into the internet infrastructure. The path through the internet network is driven by
which server computers need to be accessed to provide data, which in turn is controlled by the
type of request (ie video or text) and your geographical location.

What drives the energy consumption of digital media?

Although the servers, infrastructure and devices used in delivery produce the direct impact on
the natural world, energy use in this system is ultimately driven by people interacting with digital
products.

Unlike the paper product which once produced has a pretty fixed carbon footprint, a digital
product is only ever part complete and its footprint is constantly influenced by many people: data
center managers, cloud service providers, Internet service providers, digital developers, journalist
and readers.

Many of these people sit outside your organisation’s direct control and it is often these aspects
which account for the largest elements of your carbon footprint. For example, the devices used by
our readers to consume our content account for almost 50% of our digital carbon footprint.

Unfortunately, the proportion of an individual’s carbon footprint associated with consuming

media is tiny and therefore they have little agency or pressure to change.

Also the decisions by journalists to encourage reader commenting, linking to other articles or the
use of search engine optimisation (SEO) all increase data transfer which affect the footprint of
digital media products. One may argue that it becomes an ethical implication for journalism.
However, journalists have little or no awareness of this.

Reducing the environmental impact of the media sector is no longer in the sole control of
technical decision makers.

Our direct experience and activities at the Guardian

With the transition away from our traditional print products we wanted to have a better
understanding of what sustainability would mean for digital media.

Over the last 4 years we have been involved in various research projects including SYMPACT a
project with the University of Bristol to measure our digital carbon footprint and hosting an
engineering doctorate from the University of Surrey. We have also been working with the media
sector to share our understanding of what digital sustainability could mean.

What happened?

When we started this research in 2011 we were generally met with significant scepticism and
bewilderment as people did not believe it was possible to measure. However, people were willing
to meet and share information. From this knowledge and data we were able to build the carbon
model and produce one of the first and most advanced carbon footprint of a digital media
product.

Through this work the Sustainability Team has established a much better relationship with our
internal digital teams who provide regular data and specialists support. We have also built

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relationships with some third party digital cloud suppliers who have provided carbon data.
However they are still very protective of disclosing information.

A lot of work has been done around our data centres and optimising digital products to get
content to the audience faster and cheaper. What is very clear is that efficiency is king in the
digital ecosystem.

We have updated the carbon model for this year’s reporting and we have seen significant
improvement in carbon efficiency per £m digital revenue and per page view. However, total
carbon emissions from digital are growing and we need to find more advanced methods of
incorporating carbon impact in digital decision making.

Why is this so difficult?

From our research and experience there appears to be four key challenges to building a
sustainable digital revolution:

1 Lack of awareness - there is little understanding publicly that digital action has an
environmental impact. All digital actions are perceived to be positive for the environment and
outsourcing hardware to the cloud further breaks our link with nature
2 Lack of controllable levers - digital actions that drive environmental impacts are typically small
and dispersed across many people and organisations and there is very little systems thinking on
digital environmental impacts. Digital suppliers are not overly cooperative
3 Pace of change - due to the speed of change of the digital ecosystem once you have identified
your impacts the system or the product itself changes and your findings become less meaningful
4 Lack of assessment tools - current environmental assessment methods of digital are not good
enough because they cannot dynamically assess the impacts. The pace of change means it is very
difficult to have a constant baseline to compare performance against
To be able to tackle these challenges requires greater collaboration across the digital ecosystem. It
is not about audits and single big issues. Responsibility can not be given to a single decision
maker, everyone needs to play their part.

There needs to be a concerted effort to share knowledge and data on the environmental impacts that
occur across the digital ecosystem. We need to tap into new digital ways of thinking to look at these
problems in new and different way.

Who wants to differentiate themselves, who wants to sustain the revolution?

Since you’re here …

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising
revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put
up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to
ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money
and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it
might well be your perspective, too.

I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and
not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less
means still have access to information. Thomasine F-R.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more
secure. For as little as £1, you can support the Guardian – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
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