Towards Eco-Friendly Applications

Energy transition and ecological considerations are increasingly becoming part of corporate governance and digital strategies.

For a long time, digital transformation projects largely overlooked environmental concerns. Digital technology enabled dematerialization and reduced the need for physical travel, making it inherently eco-friendly.

The first significant realization revolved around the energy consumption of data centers, which are notoriously power-hungry.

Subsequently, studies revealed that the overall energy consumption of digital technology (including data centers, enterprise servers, network equipment, and devices) was substantial and rapidly increasing. Digital technology was estimated to consume nearly 10% of the world’s electricity and account for almost 4% of global CO2 emissions in 2019 (for comparison, France is responsible for 0.9% of global CO2 emissions, and India contributes 6%).

The environmental concern shifted from the energy consumption of digital technology to the environmental impact of manufacturing devices, servers, and network equipment.

The rapid growth of smartphones and connected devices, in particular, was found to have significant environmental consequences, including the risk of depleting “rare” minerals and metals (it takes 70 kilograms of raw materials to manufacture a 200-gram smartphone), with very limited recycling rates (less than 5% of a smartphone’s weight is recycled in France).

Environmental footprint of digital technology: it’s hard to see it clearly

Assessing the environmental footprint of digital technology is a complex endeavor, and non-experts often find it challenging to gauge the impacts and issues.

Studies and statistics can vary significantly, given the multitude of parameters and complexities involved. The overall environmental impact of digital technology should be evaluated by considering both its costs and savings. The digital domain is so intricately woven into the economy and daily life that measuring its overall energy balance is a formidable task.

Some studies emphasize the indirect savings brought about by digital technology:

• Reduced manufacturing and mail delivery costs
• Energy savings through smart buildings
• Reduced travel due to telecommuting and e-commerce
• Decreased commuting time thanks to GPS
• Fewer car journeys due to carpooling, scooters, and other electric vehicles made possible by smartphones
• Environmental protection apps that help users act more responsibly

Others point out the risk of a surge in the number of devices and associated consumption, particularly smartphones and connected devices. On the other hand, some argue that these devices consume much less energy than PCs and replace traditional equipment like cameras, alarm clocks, and GPS devices.

A study by the negawatt association suggests that digital technology saves 2 to 3 times more primary energy than it consumes, while other studies claim it struggles to balance its expenditures with the savings, which are challenging to estimate (as confirmed by an Ademe study in 2016).

The Duty to Do Better

It’s evident that both professionals in the field and consumers have given little thought, or very little, to these concerns.

Even if the overall “ecological” impact of digital technology proves to be positive for the environment (i.e., digital technology generates more savings than its emissions), we have an obligation to do better from an ecological standpoint — to consume less and pollute less.

While attention has mainly focused on the most visible sources of pollution (data centers and device manufacturers), it’s because these offer the most immediate opportunities for savings. They are also perhaps the simplest to address, which delays the necessary actions for most businesses and consumers.

Application developers and users must now take part in the broader effort.

Changing Terminal Purchasing Habits

I won’t delve into the ‘pollution related to manufacturing’ aspect of terminals here, even though it’s very significant, especially with smartphones (accounting for three-quarters of their overall environmental footprint according to an Ademe study). In summary, consumers will need to, in the future:

• Be willing to renew their terminals less frequently
• Make an effort to recycle them (stop keeping old smartphones in the closet ‘just in case they come in handy’)
• Demand genuine environmental policies from manufacturers

Manufacturers have made progress in this area, with initiatives like recycling old smartphones, battery replacement programs, and the increasing use of recycled materials. For instance, Apple has committed to developing iPhones that use 100% recycled or renewable materials in the future. However, there is still a long way to go.

Adopting an Eco-Design Approach

Eco-design involves conceiving and developing a digital service in a way that minimizes resource usage across the entire chain (servers, network, terminal):

• Reducing data transfer over the network as much as possible
• Limiting the number of server calls
• Minimizing CPU and memory consumption on servers and terminals

There are three levels of actions to consider:

1/ Addressing Technical Aspects Only

This involves optimizing the service by:

• Managing the number and types of server processes (the quantity of requests, database access, file size, compression, caching, and selecting less resource-intensive technologies)
• Reducing the amount of data transmitted over the network (request concatenation, network caching, optimizing bandwidth usage)
• Minimizing data consumption on the terminal (selecting frontend frameworks for data processing and display optimization)

The architectural and framework choices may vary when considering environmental aspects.

2/ Addressing Design and Content

A minimalist interface with fewer images, no videos, and limited graphic animations is naturally more resource-efficient than a rich interface that extensively employs videos. In cases where functionality isn’t necessarily at stake, the interface and content richness can lead to significant gains.

It’s evident that the ‘mobile-first’ approach, which has become widespread on the entire web, is more environmentally friendly compared to traditional desktop web designs.

3/ Addressing Functionality as Well

Opting to reduce features to limit service usage to what is essential can have a much more significant impact on the developer. While this may seem unthinkable for many stakeholders today, I would wager that this issue will become more relevant in the future, especially concerning the widespread use of automatically triggered videos on websites.

Despite these measures appearing to be restrictive mainly for developers, they can bring real benefits, including:

• Improved display performance and perceived quality for users (faster screen loading)
• Reduced maintenance and development costs
• A more minimalist and timeless design, leading to a more accessible service

Fostering a Culture of Moderation

It now seems natural for energy providers to guide their customers toward energy conservation, despite the fact that it reduces their revenues. Some individuals are now limiting their travel destinations to reduce the pollution they generate.

I am convinced that, in a few years, consumers will learn not to waste their digital habits. They will refrain from sending as many unnecessary emails, avoid posting mundane photos, and cease excessive video streaming. They will space out their visits to certain applications.

Gradually, the inclination toward sorting and anti-wastage will become integrated into digital behaviors and practices.

This cultural shift will naturally be initiated and reinforced by application developers. For example, they will provide information on the ecological footprint of the service used (similar to the grams of CO2 per kilometer traveled in transportation). They will refrain from overburdening users with marketing campaigns aimed at increasing the number of visits and will avoid generating spikes in audience engagement. It’s interesting to note that some voices are already rising against Black Friday in this regard.

Brands will likely alter their marketing key performance indicators (KPIs), abandoning traditional quantitative data such as unique visitors, page views, and downloads, in favor of focusing on ‘efficient’ visits and reducing their digital carbon emissions. Perhaps one day, marketing departments will commit to decreasing the number of visits per user per month for certain services to create more effective sessions.

Conclusion

Most business strategies today are based on sustainable and responsible development approaches. Combating pollution will become a priority in every sector of the business. The digital realm will not escape this rule.

Even though it is a fantastic tool for implementing these sustainable development policies, it must become more environmentally conscious.

Companies will need to support consumers in this shift from a culture of ‘digital open bar’ to prudent digital consumption.

To prepare for these changes, companies must establish and implement a genuine eco-friendly digital policy:

• Assess the environmental footprint of their digital services
• Implement an eco-design policy for applications
• Define new performance indicators for their services
• Raise awareness among teams about this approach

The mobile device, the primary tool in use, will play a crucial role in this transition. Its inherent efficiency in terms of energy, data, and design must be aligned with these changing practices.

Tools are available to assist you

The GreenIT collective has provided comprehensive resources on web eco-design at https://collectif.greenit.fr/outils.html. While these resources may need some adjustment for mobile apps, they serve as an excellent foundation. Additionally, solutions for measuring the energy consumption of websites and apps have emerged, such as the French solution Greenspector for mobile apps.