July 8, 2021
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In early 2021, the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA) in the European Parliament invited Max Schulze, Executive Chairman of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA), to participate in the third roundtable on data centers and digital infrastructures. Hosted by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) Kim van Sparrentak and Rasmus Andresen, the roundtable focused on enhancing the sustainability of Europe's digital infrastructure. Schulze's contribution centered around three key subjects:
A Mental Model for the Digital Economy: Understanding the digital economy, its products, services, and the underlying infrastructure is vital for addressing sustainability challenges. Schulze emphasized the need for a holistic, systems-based approach to comprehend the environmental impacts of digital technologies.
Defining Sustainability in the Digital Economy: Sustainability extends beyond energy consumption and emissions. It encompasses water usage, hardware circularity, and effective waste heat reutilization. A comprehensive definition of sustainability is crucial for developing effective policies and practices.
The Role of Government in Transparency and Regulation: Governments play a pivotal role in creating transparency and setting boundary conditions. By establishing clear regulations and promoting open data practices, policymakers can drive the digital sector toward more sustainable operations.
These discussions align with the Greens/EFA's publication, "Digital Technologies in Europe: An Environmental Life Cycle Approach," which deconstructs the notion that the digital world is immaterial and highlights its significant environmental footprint. The study provides a life-cycle assessment of digital technologies, offering quantitative insights into their environmental impacts and proposing policy recommendations to mitigate these effects.
To facilitate the transition toward sustainable digital infrastructure, the following policy recommendations are proposed:
Implement Comprehensive Life-Cycle Assessments (LCAs): Mandate LCAs for digital products and services to identify environmental impacts at each stage, from production to disposal.
Promote Circular Economy Practices: Encourage the design of hardware with longevity and recyclability in mind, reducing electronic waste and resource consumption.
Enhance Energy Efficiency Standards: Establish stringent energy efficiency requirements for data centers and digital services to minimize their carbon footprint.
Facilitate Waste Heat Recovery Initiatives: Support projects that repurpose waste heat from data centers for community heating solutions, improving overall energy utilization.
Ensure Transparency and Data Availability: Require companies to disclose environmental performance data, enabling informed decision-making and fostering accountability.
By adopting these measures, the European Union can ensure that its digital transformation aligns with environmental sustainability goals, fostering a digital economy that serves both people and the planet.
The digital economy is deeply intertwined with society through its products and services. These range from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to service applications such as Uber and Delivery Hero. In the business sector, companies use customer relationship management (CRM) services and automation tools to enhance operations.
While many companies behind these digital products are labeled as technology firms, they primarily apply existing technologies rather than create new ones. They typically assemble components—mainly free, open-source software—and combine them with user interfaces to create their offerings. This approach relies on several key elements:
Open-source and free technology: Used to build products and services.
Business models: Designed to generate returns for shareholders.
Fuel: Powers digital products and services.
Networks: Connect digital offerings with customers.
This approach enables rapid product development, as new iterations often involve modifying existing technological components. For example, many messaging applications today use the same underlying technologies with different business models or user interfaces.
A vital component in this ecosystem is "digital power"—a term that goes beyond energy infrastructure to include data as both input and output. Digital infrastructure consists of facilities that generate this digital power and networks that transport data between processing/storage centers and users.
Like electrical systems where power grids transmit electricity from plants to consumers, data centers function as the power plants of digital infrastructure, housing equipment that generates digital power. Fiber-optic networks carry user inputs for processing and return the results. This process can occur within a single device, such as a smartphone, which has its own storage and processing capabilities while connecting to larger digital power facilities. Most digital products and services rely on this extensive network of digital power generators for complex functions.
In summary:
Digital products and services: Combine technology and business models, requiring fuel.
Digital infrastructure: Provides both the fuel (digital power) and the data transport mechanism (fiber networks).
Data centers: Serve as the large-scale power plants of the digital economy, with fiber networks functioning as the power grids.
Sustainability in Digital Infrastructure
Sustainability, as defined in the 1987 Brundtland Report, means meeting present needs without compromising future generations' ability to meet theirs. This concept encompasses natural, social, and economic resources.
Digital infrastructure consists of several interconnected components:
Digital power generators and data storage devices (servers): Primarily composed of silicon chips.
Facilities housing these generators: Including electrical conversion systems, cooling mechanisms, and building structures, collectively known as data centers.
Fiber-optic networks: Transport data between generators and users.
Electricity: Powerin the entire system.
Among these, fiber-optic networks are currently the most sustainable. They consume minimal energy transmitting light through fiberglass, and once installed, can last for centuries. Therefore, the main sustainability challenges lie in digital power generation and storage.
Sustainable digital infrastructure, particularly in Europe, should focus on three key aspects:
Environmental Impact: Ensuring operations have no negative effects on the environment. This includes using green electricity, implementing eco-friendly building practices, recycling electronic waste, eliminating diesel generators, and minimizing waste and unused capacity.
Competitiveness: Enabling digital businesses using local digital infrastructure to remain competitive, attracting both domestic and international companies.
Inclusive Prosperity: Developing infrastructure that empowers local businesses and fosters sustainable digital ecosystems, ensuring broadly distributed benefits rather than concentration among few large entities.
The Role of Governance in Digital Infrastructure
Effective governance is essential for promoting transparency and establishing guidelines for sustainable digital infrastructure. While the European Union has pioneered technical regulations like Ecodesign guidelines for servers, system-wide actions are needed for truly sustainable digital infrastructure.
The digital economy operates as a complex system built on digital infrastructure. Currently, we lack reliable data on resource consumption and emissions in this system. This information gap hinders innovation and effective policymaking. Creating transparency at both product/service and infrastructure levels can accelerate positive change.
Governments can play a pivotal role by:
Implementing transparency registries: Requiring digital infrastructure operators to report resource consumption and emissions.
Establishing clear targets: Setting milestones to achieve net-zero emissions by specific dates, such as 2030.
Pricing externalities: Creating regulatory frameworks that reflect the true environmental and social costs of digital infrastructure.
Supporting sustainable initiatives: Providing financial incentives, easing tax burdens, and fostering policies that encourage sustainability in the digital sector.
By adopting these measures, regions like the EU can lead the way in developing a sustainable digital economy that balances technological advancement with environmental stewardship and social responsibility.
