Plepys: The Grey Side of ICT

Plepys, A. 2002. “The grey side of ICT.” Environmental Impact Assessment Review 22:509-523.

Begins with the argument that ICT is a GPT and that it is transforming economies.

“It is expected that ICTs are capable of delinking the economic growth from environmental degradation primarily due to their potential to increase productivity and create value-added in the form of manipulating ideas and information rather than energy and materials” (510). It is difficult to actually determine the environmental effects of ICT. “Evidence from the energy sector shows that a more efficient use of natural resources does not always reduce their absolute consumption” (510). “A more energy-efficient equipment reduces manufacturing costs and, consequently, the final price of a unit of product or service, which in turn increases demand. The phenomenon, called rebound effect, is well known to energy economists” (510).

“At present, we still know too little about the relation of ICT to the environment. However, the technology has a number of potential risks and uncertainties that we need to understand when placing high expectations on ICT. Drawing a parallel between the rebound effects in the energy sector and ICT helps discussing the environmental implications of the growing ICT use” (510).

“…the term rebound effect refers to an effective increase in the consumption of an energy service after its price decreases due to higher efficiency of the production of the service” (510). “If technological progress makes certain equipment more energy efficient, less energy is needed to produce the same amount of products or services, thus the cost per unit of production falls, which leads to increased demand for the product or the service” (510).

See Greening et. al. (2000) for a four tiered taxonomy of rebound effects that may be thoroughly complex to account for the GPT nature of ICT.

Firstly, there are direct or pure price effects. “These effects occur as a consequence of increased energy efficiency, which reduces the price of energy utilities by decreasing the amount of fuel needed to produce a commodity and, consequently, decreases its final price” (511).

These effects can be broken down into either “substation” or “income effects”. “A consume rwill not increase the use of the ‘bargain’ commodity indefinitely, but until the limits of satiation or budgetary tradeoffs with other expenditures” (511).

There are also “second-order” consumption effects relating to increased consumption power based on savings from purchase of goods that have been reduced in price because of increased efficiency (511).

The third type of effect that is highlighted by Greening et. al. (2000) is that taking place on the whole economy, or, “economy-wide” effects. “The argument of the economy-wide effects builds on the interrelationship of prices and outputs of goods and resources in different markets, which form a unique equilibrium state” (511).

“Transformational effects” are the final effect in this taxonomy. This relates to the, “changes of consumer preferences, altered social institutions, and organization of production” (512).

This taxonomy is applied to ICT.

The price effect is seen in the need to constantly innovate as expectations are that consumers will receive more computing power for the same price as time moves forward. “The phenomenon of receiving more performance for the same price ahs an analogy with the direct rebound effects in the energy sector” (513).

“The official statistics in the United States, indeed, indicated a decoupling between the GDP-measured economic growth and energy consumption. For example, some reports predict that the U.S. ICT sector will grow by 4.0% annually (other sectors only by 2.2%), while its energy intensity will be reduced by 0.92% (EIA, 1999). In the United States, during 1996–1999 the energy intensity per GDP unit declined by 3.4% compared to the decline of 2.6% during the oil crisis. More surprising, the decline of the late 1990s occurred without any significant price signals or policy initiatives (Laitner, 2000; USDC, 2000)” (514). Some credit this delinking with structural changes brought about by ICT innovation and continued adoption.

Further effects of the taxonomy created by ICT adoption are difficult to surmise as they involve complex consumer behavior.

Direct environmental effects:

“One part of environmental impacts derives directly from the life cycle of ICT products. The other part originates from the use of ICT products and services, enhancing or substituting traditional processes or creating new ones. Therefore, when discussing the environmental impacts of ICT, it is useful to frame them into both the live cycle and the system’s perspectives” (515).

One way of exploring the life cycle, is to equate the production with an ecological backpack. This uses the MIPS method of Wuppertal Institute of Germany. Many computers may require material intensity of 16-19 metric tons (516).

There is a general discussion of different technologies and their relative energy consumption needs. For example, it is much more environmentally friendly to produce and lay fiber optic cables in place of copper, but that means that they are laid everywhere (the author cites National Geographic which has them being laid faster than the speed of sound). There is also the problem of faster networks necessitating faster computing, and planned obsolescence (this last term not directly in text, but tacitly so).

Additionally, waste produced by discarded computers annually requires either huge investments in recycling centers or landfills.

ICT has the potential to help create sustainable development, but this is by no means guaranteed. There has to be a change in consumer behavior for this to happen. ICT can simply be a means to improve channels of consumerism.

Some ways in that ICT has failed to promote sustainable development: paperless offices are non-existent: paper consumption continues to rise. Digital Media: users who own computers are not necessarily more efficient in receiving their news. Online consumption: can lower price, increase demand, increase consumption.

“Clearly, the ICT has a potential to decouple economic growth from economic growth from environmental degradation. However, without considering potential rebound effects of increased ICT consumption, the environmental implications can quickly become detrimental. The environmental impacts of ICT largely depend on how the ICT applications perform when human behavior becomes a very important factor” (521).