Smarter through digital: the environment

A recent Climate Group and Global e-Sustainability Initiative report, SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age,¹ suggests that digital technologies can contribute to a healthy environment in two main ways: through enabling accurate monitoring and reporting, and through technologies that enable more efficient use of resources.

Digital technology can be used to monitor and report on resource use, energy consumption
and carbon emissions across the economy, for example, in transport, energy generation, buildings and ICT itself. This will help us to identify possible innovations or efficiencies and monitor their effects. Innovative and creative digital products and management systems can allow us to transform our lives – including the ways we do business, manufacture products, use water and fertiliser on our farms, and transport items, as well as where and how we live.

However, using energy or resources more efficiently as a result of digital technology may
not lead to overall reductions if we use the energy or resources saved by being more efficient in one area to do more in another area. We need both the right technology and the right regulatory and policy frameworks, such as limits on total carbon emissions, to ensure a net environmental benefit.

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^{1   SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. A report by The Climate Group, commissioned by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative. www.theclimategroup.org}