Watching a series on Netflix or sharing a video on social media seems like a green pastime with no impact on the environment, right? But things are not that simple. And the fact is that to handle the hundreds of billions of bytes that we generate and consume, the data centers that store, process and redistribute this immensity of data are large consumers of energy, to which we must add the energy consumed in the manufacture and distribution of digital devices, from the cell phone to the laptop, through the laptop, and beyond.from cell phones to laptops, including Smart TVs and servers, and the energy consumed when using them.

According to estimates by The Shift Project, a Paris-based NGO, the share of greenhouse gas emissions from digital technologies rose from 2.5% of the total in 2013 to 3.7% in 2019, a carbon footprint larger than that of air travel. The main sources of emissions were the use of online videos and increased consumption of short-lived electronic devices. The energy intensity of the technology industry is increasing by 4% per year, compared to the 1.8% annual decline shown by the energy intensity of global GDP.

These numbers hide a paradox. Digital technologies are key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but, at the same time, they are becoming a major, and growing, source of these emissions.

Fortunately, new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things and machine learning are helping to make the technology industry a greener business.. But The Shift Project also proposes a change in the way we consume technology: to do so in a more sober way and with awareness of the impact of digitization on climate change.

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