The Role Of ICT In Tackling Climate Change

[Derek_Parkinson]

ICT can provide the tools to help other sectors to work more efficiently and it therefore has a critical role to play in helping to address carbon emissions across the economy. Already we have seen how electronic communications reduce the need for travel but environmental campaigners WWF has identified ten uses of ICT that could save at least a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

Among its recommendations, WWF identified simulation and analytics models as a means of improving urban design to optimise energy efficiency as well as enabling wider deployment of renewable energy. Analyst McKinsey has estimated that 7.8 billion tonnes could be saved by the intelligent use of ICT in buildings, power, transport, manufacturing and teleworking.

There is no getting away from the fact that ICT operations themselves consume energy – though it should be noted that the sector has worked hard to successfully improve energy efficiency in recent years – but the wider benefits they can offer are being increasingly recognised in both the private and public sectors.

Three routes to energy efficiency

In 2008, Intellect published High Tech: Low Carbon - The role of technology in tackling climate change (http://www.intellectuk.org/content/view/4464/84/) which outlined the progress the technology sector has made and the significant challenges it faces. High Tech: Low Carbon identified three classes of technology that can contribute to an overall reduction in energy demand.

Enhancing technologies enable us to perform current tasks more efficiently such as transport logistics systems which can streamline fleet operations and reduce fuel consumption. Enabling technologies are those that allow us to change the way we do things. Perhaps the most significant of the enabling technologies is broadband as it provides a platform for so many dependent carbon saving technologies such as videoconferencing. Transforming technologies, the final category, covers those that fundamentally change people’s behaviour – advances in teleworking, for example, enable resources to be shared more efficiently. This can sometimes remove the need for workers to travel at all through the development of virtual call centres where individuals can work from home and still be part of the call centre team.

High Tech: Low Carbon was well received, especially by politicians grappling with the challenge delivering a low carbon future. Earlier this year, the European Commission published a recommendation that estimated that ICT-enabled improvements in other sectors could save about 15% of total carbon emissions by 2020, with particular benefits for building and construction, transport logistics and energy use. The fact that the European Commission has formally recognised the role of ICT in cutting carbon emissions is a great achievement for the industry but we must work hard to make those proposals a reality.

Building on this achievement, Intellect has published ICT: Greening the Public Sector (http://www.intellectuk.org/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_download/gid,3871/Itemid,102/) which focuses on reducing emissions in the public sector by deploying ICT intelligently. The document contains a range of real-life case studies that give examples from the central and local government which demonstrate ways in which ICT and associated technologies are being used across the whole public sector estate to reduce emissions.

As in all sectors, many of these emissions savings also translate into cost savings which will be increasingly welcome in the present economic climate and amid concern about the government’s deficit. The public sector also is the biggest buyer of ICT in the UK and has therefore, enormous potential to act as a driver of innovation in this area.

Decoupling economic growth and energy consumption

Intellect has long argued that the intelligent use of technology is the only way that we can genuinely decouple economic growth from energy consumption. In order to make this decoupling a reality, we will need to build new business relationships that will enable new technologies to be fully implemented.

There is evidence to suggest that these relationships are already emerging. A new focus on service provision and partnership for example, is common in the print manufacture industry for example where a managed print service is offered to customers instead of the purchase of a printer. From a sustainability point of view, there are a number of advantages to adopting a model where the supplier retains ownership of the device throughout its life and is responsible for its disposal. Not only does this model encourage both customer and supplier to be as efficient as possible throughout the life of the printer – it also means that the manufacturer will consider the costs and challenges of disposal at the point of manufacture.

As ICT becomes an ever more pervasive part of our lives, it has attracted its fair share of attention as a consumer of energy. It is estimated that around 2% of global emissions are directly attributable to ICT. There is no doubt that the sector must do what it can to minimise energy demand from its products and High Tech: Low Carbon relates the progress that has been made so far as well as recommending a number of possible solutions.

Of course, the more energy efficient ICT is itself, the more compelling a solution it becomes to the emissions headaches of other sectors. The prize that we must look for is in the efficiencies that can be delivered in other sectors through intelligent deployment of ICT and these wider savings could potentially dwarf the emissions that are currently directly attributed to ICT.

John Higgins is Director General of Intellect, the industry body for information and communication technologies, which collectively contribute at least 10% to the GDP of the UK. Intellect has just under 800 member companies, 500 of which are SMEs. Created in 2002, it traces its history back 75 years to the British Radio Manufacturers Association.