Addressing environmental impacts of ICTs

Towards Green ICT strategies: Assessing Policies and Programmes on ICTs and the Environment

Publisher: Organisation for Economic and Cooperation and Development, 2009

Improving environmental performance, tackling global warming and enhancing resource management are on top of the list of global challenges that must be urgently addressed.

Image credits: Google/ Greening ICTs

This report analyses over 90 government programmes and business initiatives on ICT and the environment that address environmental challenges, particularly global warming and energy use.

Initiatives concentrate on greening ICTs rather than tackling global warming and environmental degradation through the use of ICT applications.

Only one tenth of initiatives focus solely on using ICTs as an enabler, although almost one third of initiatives look at both greening ICT infrastructures as well as deploying ICT applications as enablers.

Environmental information systems, smart transport and smart buildings are among the most frequently supported ICT-related applications.

Very few business associations have strategies to apply ICTs outside of the ICT sector reducing environmental impacts over the complete life-cycle, even though manufacturing, distribution and disposal can have higher environmental impacts.

Many government economic stimulus packages are promoting green technologies and green growth to boost investment and support the recovery.

This document cites examples of countries that focus on measuring the quality and impact of their policies and programmes. The Green ICT scorecard used by the United Kingdom and GeSI’s GRI Telecom Supplement are rare but promising examples.