ICTs can have positive and negative effects on the environment, although the identifiable impacts tend to be positive or neutral, unless contribution to economic growth is considered to be negative.
On the matter of recycling and waste, ICTs may improve waste collection by contributing to better management, but they also produce waste equipment. ICTs may often reduce the need for travel (e.g., a simple phone call may often replace the need to deliver a message personally). As well, ICTs can make it easier to travel (e.g., users are able to find out bus schedules more easily, or to better coordinate meetings and other travel related events).
The balance between the good and the bad depends on policies in ways that are not yet fully understood, though a useful attempt to examine the balance for the EU is reported in The Future Impact of ICTs on Environmental Sustainability.
There are some specific suggestions for positive programmes in a developing country in Using ICTs for Poverty Reduction and Environmental Protection in Kenya. More generally, even in developing countries, regulators, service providers and equipment vendors can take the steps listed in the Practice Note Simple actions for improving the environmental effects of ICTs.
For regulators the principal actions involve:
- Ensuring that their own operations set good examples, especially in their use of buildings and travel;
- Encouraging the provision of services (including e-government, etc.) that use telecommunications to reduce travel, thus reducing polluting emissions (CO2, etc.);
- Requiring that equipment adheres to standards that limit environmental effects, through type approval or otherwise [1];
- Educating users about the strengths and weaknesses of applications that support secure on-line transactions and thereby reduce the use of paper; and
- Contributing to national environmental protection strategies, to ensure that sector strategies include the use of ICTs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For service providers and equipment vendors, ICTs can affect the environment in ways besides those considered here. For instance, network construction and operation can degrade natural habitats by being noisy and ugly. The relevant authorities, who are not usually the ICT regulators, are likely to require an environmental impact assessment for any major project, using guidelines on mitigating impacts such as those in Environmental, Health, and Safety Guidelines for Telecommunications.
Many regulators, service providers and equipment vendors record their plans for environmental protection and periodically report on their actions. An example of an annual report, from the regulator in Hong Kong, China, is provided by Environmental Report 2006/07.
End notes
- For a tool that lists and tests computers that reach any of three levels of acceptability to standards, see Environmental Protection Electronics Assessment Tool (EPEAT), www.epeat.net.