Print vs digital sustainability
While paper and print have long been scrutinised for their carbon footprint, a recent report from the Green IT association sheds light on the substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by the digital industry.
The Green IT found that the digital sector is responsible for as much as 3.4% of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions, reported LeMonde in February 2025.
Another way to say it is: If digital technology were a country, its emissions would be equivalent to 5.5 times those of France or twice those of Canada, as reported by Francetv.info.
Green IT Environmental Impact reports
The Green IT Association is a global initiative with collaborations based in Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland and France. Their Green IT Benchmark report shows how digital technology now alone consumes 40% of an individual’s sustainable annual carbon budget, based on a lifestyle that would follow the Paris Agreement to keep global warming below 1.5°C. This means that the level of digital consumption is disproportionate compared to essential human needs such as food, water, and shelter. The report, based on data from 2023, is a reminder of how much the internet is depleting our planet's resources.
Looking closely at emissions
Almost half of the calculated global annual emissions come from data centre energy consumption, telephone networks and servers running artificial intelligence, the report shows. The rest is caused by private and professional end-use devices, where energy for powering the use of the device is the main part.
More than 5 billion users
Climate impact will continue to increase, given the "systemic increase in the number of equipment, uses, and the number of users", the Green IT report points out. There are over five billion internet users worldwide, and the number has increased by 30% in just four years. Each user, on average, owns six connected devices, including smartphones, computers, televisions, and smart speakers.
The use of AI was also still in its infancy when data for this study was collected – and it still is. In 2023, 4% of the digital technology's impact came from AI servers. As AI adoption accelerates, so too does its environmental footprint.
Going digital doesn’t mean go green
“Go paperless”, “go green” or “save trees” are common messages that many organisations use to promote a switch from communication on paper to electronic transactions and communications. The organisation Two Sides monitors this type of messages in order to debunk the myths.
"These sort of messages give the impression that electronic communication is more environmentally friendly than paper-based communication", writes TwoSides.
Digital impact underestimated
So, what's the truth? As a result from the engagement by Two Sides, over 1000 of the world’s largest organisations have removed misleading statements which claimed that moving to digital communications would be better for the environment.
Two Sides' reports show that the environmental impact of digital technology is often underestimated. The environmental footprint of digital technology is large, and it hasn't stopped growing. We all need to be mindful of the hidden digital footprint.
The digital sector is responsible for more than 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Green IT association. That is more than the emissions from all the air traffic in the world (2.5%).
Growing footprint of the ICT industry
The information and communication technology, ICT industry sector, is "the manufacturing and services industries whose products primarily fulfil or enable the function of information processing and communication by electronic means”, defined by OECD. According to the European commission in 2020 the ICT industry accounts for 5-9% of the world's electricity use. The emissions from the energy use alone stood for more than 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020.
Unprecedented growth
"The growth of the ICT sector in recent years has been unprecedented and is projected to keep that steady pace," writes the mobile network operators' organisation GSMA Europe, which also states that there are growing concerns about the industry’s environmental footprint.
Reducing the ICT sector carbon emissions also goes beyond meeting the energy efficiency goals. It includes "more complex challenges, such as finding ways to ensure sustainable supply chains", according to GSMA.
The impact of e-mail
If people in the UK stopped writing quick “thank you” e-mail notes that would equate to taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road for an entire year. That’s according to energy supplier OVO’s “Think before you thank” campaign. Email-users are sending 376 billion emails each day, and the CO2 emissions from a short email is 0.4 g.
Today, every person in the developed world has at least one ‘interaction’ with a data centre every 18 seconds of their lives. The International Energy Agency estimates that 1% of all global electricity is used by data centres. By 2025, they will consume some 20% of the world’s power supply.
Cost of an e-mail
Mike Berners-Lee is a researcher at Lancaster University in the UK, author of the book The Carbon Footprint of Everything and founder of Small World Consulting, a company that researches the carbon footprints of the public.
He estimates that the “cost” of a short email from one laptop to another is some 0.4g CO²e, while a longer one that takes 10 minutes to write and 3 minutes to read, sent laptop to laptop, weighs in at around 17g CO²e. One with a large attachment can reach up to 50g.
Electricity costs
The book also reveals that the footprint of an email comes from the electricity needed to power the equipment used at each stage of the process: the device it is written on, the network that sends it, the data centre it is stored on, and the device it is read on.
It’s the devices at each end that are the key factors, even when large attachments are being sent.
Streaming compared to car driving
Rabih Bashroush, a scientist at the EU-funded Eureca project, worked out that the five billion streams of a music video from 2017 used up as much electricity as the entire countries of Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and the Central African Republic put together in a single year.
Streaming equals driving
"Could video streaming be as bad for the environment as driving a car?", asked physics professor Stefano Bonetti recently on the commentary website The Conversation. Since he is a physics professor, he calculated the energy use and concluded that streaming a two-hour movie on a normal phone or computer is comparable to the emissions from a 45-minute car drive. This is quite mind-boggling for something that we perceive as immaterial.
Look at the hidden impact of digital
When considering the climate impact and greenhouse gas emissions, we must look at all the relevant factors. In his book How to avoid a climate disaster, Bill Gates outlines some important questions to ask:
- How are things made?
- How are things grown?
- Where does the electricity come from?
- How is everything transported?
Impact from production, usage and waste disposal as well as from raw material extraction and energy consumption throughout the life cycle needs to be counted.
Difficult to recycle
In 2019, the ICT industry was responsible for a gigantic 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of e-waste across the world, reported TwoSides. That’s equivalent to the weight of 350 cruise ships. The waste disposal has since then gone up by an alarming 21% over the past five years, and recycling activities are not keeping pace with the growth.
Raw materials from digital equipment, servers and power generators are often finite, precious and non-renewable. They are also notoriously difficult to recycle. The mining and extraction of rare earth minerals for digital devices puts further strain on global resources and human working conditions on Earth.
Be careful of greenwashing
More than 750 of the world’s largest organisations have removed misleading statements that said digital communications was better for the environment. This follows TwoSides calling out greenwashing. In our increasingly digital world electronic and paper-based communications coexist and are often complementary. We need to set the facts straight.