The future of the digital sector

Assessing the environmental footprint of the digital sector is a complex exercise, not least because of the lack of open data, the absence of a common methodology and the cross-cutting nature of digitalization: both a sector in its own right and scattered across other sectors.

However, we are beginning to get a better picture of the ecological weight of the digital sector. We now need to better study the potential positive impacts of this sector. Even if we were to hypothesise that, as it is today, has no positive impact, we would still need to investigate under what conditions this infrastructure can help the transition, because scarce resources, water and energy, human labour have already been invested in it.

It is not a question of accepting without question the claims of positive impacts, nor is it a question of disqualifying them out of hand, but rather of starting a long process of investigation and research.

Report only available for now (translation in progress)