Discovering the footprint of digital news
Transcriber: Kirtan Bhatt
Reviewer: 한솜 이
As more and more of our
time are spent online,
our digital consumption is increasing.
Digital banks streaming
of music and video
and digital health care are part of our
everyday life now and takes more
and more of our money consumed.
Compared to the consumption
of physical goods.
Digital consumption are rarely linked
to any environmental burden.
But is that really the truth? What
do we actually know about it?
During the past year, we have seen several
headlines addressing this topic.
Describing the link between digital
consumption and environmental footprint,
we can learn that the YouTube video with
the song Despacito have consumed
900 gigawatt hours,
which is equal to the energy consumption
in five African countries during one
year. We can also see that the carbon
emissions from streaming is equal to
the carbon emissions from
France during one year.
But there are also facts
that says the opposite.
The International Energy
Agency says that the
the numbers of streaming are
highly overestimated.
Again, what do we actually know about this
? What is the fact here? To start with
We need to address and clarify. There
are no smoke without fire.
And there are numerous digital products
that have been decided without thinking
about the environmental burden.
But calling out that all digital
consumption is bad for the environment.
Can’t be the truth, but therefore we also
need all companies handling digital
products, need to be aware of
the environmental burden.
Get specific insights on their detailed
products and understand
the environmental footprint of it.
Theme Park was founded by the
University of Bristol
and several media companies to
demystify this topic that has
so many rumours around it.
The methodology for this is based on
the outcome of this world class
researchers at the University of Bristol
and their findings. This is taken into
a calculation tool considering
the full value of digital news, which
means the content creation part,
the distribution of information and
the consumption on the user side.
It covers both the carbon footprint
and also the energy consumption.
And this gives detailed information
to the media companies
on what their actual footprint
this and gives a basis and
the fundamentals to take action
on what’s needed to be changed
to be able to reduce this.
By focusing on carbon emissions and using
substance digital value chain
for the digital news as an example,
I will give you an overview how would
digital values and could look like?
And the main characteristics to understand
this topic better since that
value chain consists of
three different parts.
The first part is the publishing
infrastructure,
which means the internal work it ships
that that it’s needed to create content
and publish content. That’s part stands
for 10 percent of its carbon emissions.
The next part is the digital distribution,
which means the distribution
of information through
the global internet network, through
cables, through wireless connections,
taking out information to the users.
This part stands for 20 percent of
the emission of digital value.
The last part is about the use of devices,
so the consumption of this product.
So how users are taking part of content
through their smartphones,
through laptops. This is the majority of
the carbon emissions that is generated.
This stands for 70 percent
of the emissions.
Looking in to the actual number
of carbon emissions,
we can see that the emissions of the
total value chain of digital news
for chips that in Sweden and Norway stands
for
526 tonnes of CO2 emissions,
a significant number if you look on it
by itself, but put into context.
Looking into and compare it with digital
news in other countries that is outside
of our Nordic low carbon electricity grid,
we have another answer compared to how
much emissions you have from flights
or break down this emissions
on each individual users that
is consuming digital news
for ships that services. We can see
that this amount is minimal.
Anyhow, there are energy consumed
and there are emissions here,
and this is forming our
attitudes insights,
what actions can we take
to reduce our impact?
And it’s important to address here
that most of the actions.
Is and can be taken outside of ships that
it’s outside of ships that control.
But that’s also addressed
the need of cooperation.
Cooperation is needed between
all the actors in
the digital value chain to be able to
reduce this. That’s the first point.
The second point that is important here
is that we are taking responsibility
for the actions that we can take that is
within our control. And there are free.
Main points that we have addressed as
main actions to be able to address
and reduce our impact. The first one,
it’s about principles.
It’s about how we’re designing our
products and ensure that we’re minimizing
the environmental footprint
of them already from
the beginning when we’re putting
them on the market.
The second one is about
nudging user behavior.
Make it easy for our users to take
decisions that is consuming less energy.
And this is a tricky one, because there
might be contradictions with optimizing
products for use and environmental
footprint.
For example, if we make our users spend
less time using our products,
we will save energy. But at the same time,
we will have an issue and minimizing
the societal impact by lowering
the time people are consuming journalists
high quality journalism.
And here is a balance needed
and the last one.
It’s about the data that we’re transfer,
how we’re optimizing that to ensure that
we are not sending out data that is
not needed by the user. It’s about
optimizing the page size.
It’s about optimizing the video bitrate
and also not sending out data that
is not used by the consumer.
To summarize, I’m going back
to the initial question.
Thus, digital consumption have
an environmental footprint.
And I think this shows, yes, it has.
But it’s limited in some cases.
But we have things to do. The digital
value chain is not designed with
the environmental footprint as a focus.
When taking actions of this, it’s
also important to be balanced,
balanced in terms of what
type of emissions
and energy that we are addressing, how
much kilowatt hours can be saved.
How much CO2 emissions can be saved.
but also balanced in terms of how it’s
connected to other sustainability aspects
like the societal impact with
high quality journalism.
But all organizations with a
digital value chain have
a clear task here to do have
a clear opportunity of finding new
ways to innovate products using
the filter of sustainability,
environmental footprint
and develop products.
So the answers are out there to seek.
All organizations have their opportunities
to find it and take actions,
reduce impact and meet the demand of a
future low carb society.
Thank you.