Carbon Disclosure Project 2011


Although the potential that the ICT sector and broadband have to stimulate a high-growth, low carbon economy is great, some areas of concern have been raised in terms of emissions generated through the ICT sector.


1) The rebound effect


Many commentators are concerned that as products become easier to purchase (i.e. through downloading) and costs decrease, the amount that we consume will increase. The key to resolving this challenge is ensuring that ICT products are good quality, not just provided in vast quantity and ensuring clean energy supply is available to the ICT sector. In addition, it is important to note:


• The increase in emissions from the ICT sector will be far outweighed by the emissions reductions they can instigate in the rest of the economic system;


• Consolidation of devices will mean that physical material use continues to decrease;


• These consolidated hand-held devices have a far lower energy demand than traditional computers. Nokia’s figures suggest they are five times more efficient;37


• There will need to be policy that progressively favors dematerialized services;


• ICT is a tool that can take us towards the solution but it is not the complete solution in its own right.


2) Taking into account the emissions in the full value chain


The communications economy that we have introduced in this paper has no national or geographic boundaries. This means that many of the devices that companies and society use to enable this transition will be imported from countries such as China. It is essential that emissions associated with the production of these products are measured and accounted for.


Danny Quah from the London School of Economics researched the idea of the ‘weightless economy’ in the mid 1990s*


. His work centered on the


idea that as modern economies grow, production and consumption shift towards economic value that resides in bits and bytes, and away from that embedded in atoms and molecules. We went to speak to him to see if his predictions had been realized. He said:


“Indeed many of the effects I identified in my work in the 1990s have come to pass: just look at the size and success of Google and Amazon. Mobile telephony has exploded. On carbon, however, emissions have continued to grow. When countries become richer, people move around more and they buy more... of everything, including not least material goods. Some call this the rebound effect.


“I do see that ICT and broadband can play an important role in helping advanced economies decrease their carbon emissions through dematerialization. But advanced economies also outsource to the emerging economies, the production and carbon emission of what they consume. A truly dematerialized economy is not limited by geography and physical boundaries, and therefore neither should the accounting for the associated carbon emissions.”


*Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, February 1997, vol. 37 no. 1, pp. 49-56.


37. Nokia online. Lets pull the plug on energy waste. Available from http://www.nokia.com/environment/devices-and-services/energy-effiency Last accessed June 16th, 2011.


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