“DIGITAL ECOLOGY” WHAT IS THAT ?
Digital is the biggest electric industry of our time, and this is just the beginning. In 2010, scientists estimated energy consumption of the digital industry will be increasing by 4% a year, fixing the worst case scenario at 10%. The reality said something else: since then, digital electric consumption increased by 8,5% each year. And this figure is about to grow by 50% in 2020.
16% of global energy consumption is dedicated to the digital industry.
Each year, companies send 95 billions of spams in the world. The energetic cost of it is more than 17 millions of tons of C02, the same amount of 3 millions of cars in circulation.
Digital is nothing less than a modern industry. Cloud, email boxes, search engines are in fact factories with real, hard and tangible technologies requiring millions of gigawatts to function. All our daily actions (buying a product online, sending an email, posting a selfie, stocking files on the cloud, making a research on Google…) demand energy; fuels coming from our soils (coal, nuclear, fuel…). And because it is an invisible pollution, we can’t see it as dirty as a petrochemical plant, we do not realize its existence and impact.
Digital can definitely improve the way we live, the way we deal with the Planet and significantly decrease social division or poverty, increase education for all and make us more aware of environmental matters. Actually, we have never been so aware of climate change since digital is everywhere. That is why, at Digital For The Planet, we do not want to stop digital progression but measure it and define good and sustainable practices.
1. KNOWLEDGE: Federate citizens
It comes first with education. If people get purchase power, we have a terrible lack of “purchase knowledge”: If we can make people understand what implies a connexion, time spent on social networks, a streamed movie or a sent email, we can start changing our behaviours.
We made the first institutional study with a French office, Occurrence “French and Digital ecology” to assess the maturity level and what think French about the topic. It turns out 75% of respondents ignored the meaning of “digital ecology” but 90% of them think it is a major stake when they are told what it is.
Our goal is to help citizens so they are aware of what they buy, how they consume and what is our impact on the Planet, by conferences, studies, events and incentives in schools.
2. RENEWABLE ENERGIES: Planet is off
The digital industry is provided by fossil fuels (coal, nuclear, gas…) which both damages Earth soils and produces greenhouse gas. Since digital energy consumption keeps increasing, it is necessary to power this industry with clean energy (wind, solar, water power…).
Some IT giant already started their green power transition as Facebook or Google, according to Greenpeace but others are still working with nuclear or coal energy.
3. ACCOMPANYING COMPANIES
That is why, at Digital For The Planet, we federate renewable energies actors and most polluting companies to find a way to work together.We accompany companies to change daily work practices and work on a brand new energy circularity management. It is a co-construction initiative led by CSR, IT, E-Commerce, HR or Communication departments. We created a European digital ecolabel, DFP18, to reward the most digitally sustainable companies.
4. TECHNOLOGY CAN BE GOOD
If we gather the three first points, we are then able to create the perfect digital tool: powered by clean energy, smart enough to help you to have a better use of your devices. Its name is Plana and it will be operational by 2019.
