The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the virtual Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), from 2 to 17 November 2020. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> MODERATOR: Hello, everyone. It is half past 9:00 so I think we are ready to begin. I hope you can hear me well.
So thank you for being here with us today and to discuss about this important topic of the environmental impact of ICT.
So my name is Anais Aubert, and I work at ARCEP where I am the Deputy Head of Economic Analytics and Digital Unit. And I'm also the co-chair of the Barrett Group, the European body of regulators in charge of sustainability.
So today we would like to analyze concrete illustrations of best practices developed in order to increase the environmental efficiency of each block of the internet value chain. And we will deal with such back practices both from the viewpoint of both energy consumption and also life cycle.
We will talk about best practices; but, of course, the presupposition is not that everything is going well, on the contrary, but we would like to highlight what and how we can do better.
So to begin with, it is important to note that we would like to focus on the impact of the sector itself. We do not question at all that ICT could have positive impacts for climate action, but we will consider how we can minimize the negative impacts of the sector itself.
For this, first of all, I would like to underline a few figures on the impacts of the digital sector on the environment.
So, first of all, note that ICT as a whole represents 8% to 10% of the electricity consumptions, and 2% to 4% of carbon emissions at the global level. And ICT emissions could increase up to 40% of global emission by 2040.
Second of all, data centers all over the world alone are set to account by 2025 as much as all greenhouse gas emissions as all air traffic. And when it comes to digital devices, they are the main source of digital environmental impact. Note that to produce a mobile phone 60 different metal to be recycled (break in audio). Moreover, 22 kilogram of raw materials are needed to produce a microchip weighing 2 grams. And finally, life of digital devices have steadily decreased between 1985 to 2015, and the useful life of a computer today was reduced from 11 years to only four years.
So considering these facts, we believe that we need to develop a truly integrated and innovative solutions to meet the UN 2030 agenda targets regarding environmental sustainability and climate action. So that's why we are here today to discuss about actions.
And so we welcome today four panelists to discuss these issues. So we have Ruiqi Ye from Greenpeace. Paolo Gemma from the International Telecommunication Union. Agnieszka Skorupinska from Vodafone. And Gauthier Roussilhe, a designer and researcher focusing on digital design and environmental impacts of the digital industry.
So thank you very much all to be here today. And Ruiqi, if you may, we will begin with you. Thank you for being here, Ruiqi.
And we also are glad to have Greenpeace on board today. And please can you tell us about the issue that you are trying to tackle regarding energy consumption in particular and what you are doing in East Asia as an NGO in this regard? Thank you, Ruiqi.
>> RUIQUI YE: Thanks for inviting me. I'm really happy to be here. Is my voice okay? Cool.
Yeah, I would like to introduce a little bit about our project on the data center work in China. Actually, we have been focusing on the potential of the ICT sector and renewable energy since 10 years ago, around 2010. It started with our U.S. office. And we really started to looking at this work in Asia around 2017.
We were looking at Korea, Taiwan, and China at the time as well as the U.S. and see how these four regions can have corporate procurement of renewable energy.
So moving from 2017 to 2019, we started a project in China specifically looking at China's own ICT sector and its growth and its carbon emission trajectory and thinking about how we can help the sector in China to move towards 100% renewable energy.
So I think we have all heard the introduction pretty well why the ICT sector is facing the carbon emission challenge, specifically from its large energy consumption. And depending on the grid, as you probably all know, China is pretty coal heavy, coal reliant. So the ICT sector here is also very coal reliant.
And in order to bring China towards to meeting its Paris climate goal, like the ICT sector is one of the very important sectors that needs to address its carbon emission as well.
So in addition to just our scale of the carbon emission in China and also in the growth of ICT sector here, we also probably all know that China's ICT sector is growing very fast, and that is why this market is especially important if we are talking about global carbon neutrality and we are looking at the sector overall. And China is an important battleground.
So the good news is we have seen some really positive trends since 2017. First of all, at the national level China has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2060, in late September this year. So that -- and peak our carbon by 2030. That overall is the country's plan.
And with that as a background, we foresee a fast energy transition in China. And with that also being said, the ICT sector here, we also foresee rapid growth in the digital economy in the future. So how to combine the low carbon transition towards carbon neutrality and also what the role of ICT sector can play in China is what interests us the most.
So I would like to talk a little bit more about our work here. We are mostly focusing on corporate engagement work. Just with a little bit of sector analysis and sectorial study just -- so last year we released two reports. One specifically looking at the data centers' energy consumption and its carbon emission.
So from our data, currently the data center sector consumed about like 161-kilowatt hour in 2018. And it is roughly 2.35% of the country's total electricity consumption, similar to Shanghai City.
And what we found is although it might not be as large as cement or other sectors combined, actually the growth is what is concerning, the trend.
From 2018 to 2023, we are seeing that the sector grow by 66%, reaching about 267-kilowatt hour. And it's more than Australia's total electricity consumption in 2018.
So we first by just really trying to mapping out and understanding what is the energy consumption level of the China's overall data center.
And then we have done other report looking specifically at company-level performance. It is a series of report called Click Clean. So previously in 2013, 2014, and 2015 we had the Click Clean ranking looking at how U.S. IT companies, what does their renewable energy commitment and procurement look like.
And now in 2019 year and early this year, 2020, we have a report specifically only looking at China's big IT companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and also with the collocation companies like GDS and Chindata Group. So we are looking at these up and rising Chinese big ITs and what is their current level of renewable energy commitment and procurement.
So what we found is only one company has made a 100% renewable energy commitment. That is Chindata Group. The rest of the big giants haven't made any commitments yet, and we only see one company setting a carbon goal. That is Huawei. And the rest haven't done anything yet.
But the positive thing is compared to five years ago we are actually seeing more companies buying renewable energy even though they don't have a public goal. For example, like Alibaba and Chindata, they have entered into something similar to a short-term PPA in Hebei Province.
So we are seeing a gap of these companies actually trying to buy renewable in the market with different scale. The scale is relatively still small, but they are trying to explore the market.
However, in a long-term vision and carbon neutrality goal 100% renewable energy goal they are still lacking behind their peers. More specifically, we can see that a lot of the global companies including European and the U.S. Telecom companies like Apple, Google, maybe European telecoms, they all have 100% renewable energy goal. So I think that is a little bit gap there. So that is the second report that we have done checking at the company level.
So we understand, we have been talking to companies, that it is not like they don't want to procure renewable energy. Sometimes they don't know how. And also the renewable energy market in China is still in the process of developing and opening up. So we don't have a lot of material or procurement mechanisms such as a 20-year PBA contract here yet.
So we also host some of the capacity building workshops and we are trying to bridge the Chinese companies with the EU and U.S. companies where maybe the UN and U.S. companies have more experience in the renewable energy market and also setting these goals. So we're trying to bridge the information gap by hosting these workshop and bring more international experience to China.
So those are some of the work that we've done surrounding trying to move the data center and the IT sector in China towards 100% renewable energy.
So just some final notes and observation of how corporate actions can help in moving China to low carbon or carbon neutrality in 2060.
So there is a lot of I see interaction between global and local in these big IT and the ICT sector. For example, we see like Amazon setting a 100% renewable energy goal a long time ago for their data centers, and they have upgraded their commitment this year, early this year.
And then we see that AWS starting to buy renewable energy product in China this year. So they have 100-megawatt solar project. So these global companies with their commitment will have an impact in the local renewable energy market.
So as the same as Apple. They have committed to bringing the supply chain towards 100% renewable energy. So they have started a renewable energy fund in local market, too.
So these progress have been inspiring a lot of the action from the local company. Like, for example, Alibaba and Tencent will be wondering so how the Apple and AWS do it, and what are we missing here?
So I think these interactions between global and local is interesting. And we are also seeing where like Chinese companies going towards foreign markets like the spec ITs, they enter into the U.S. market or EU market. They are being asked about their current level of carbon emission and renewable energy, percentage of renewable energy.
So the higher expectation in the foreign market are also sending pressure or sending or driving some of the local companies change.
And finally, I would like to also mention that it is not just global to local and local to global.
And because China is very large, so different province have different level of progress in terms of the renewable energy market. There is also a layer of local to local impact.
For example, I mentioned that Alibaba and Chindata Group has done a deal in one of the Hebei Province. And this deal is being studied right now, and they may be able to scale up and replicate in another province.
These are worth paying attention to. So these are the potential impact that I see from corporate action, you know, in terms of driving local renewable energy market mechanism, driving new market mechanisms and also implementing the market mechanism here.
And all in all, that's all I want to say for now. And looking forward to hear some other perspective on this. And I think global standard and expectation on the sector is high, and I'm interested to see how we can apply more of the global expectation to localized work.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Ruiqi. It was very interesting and huge, amazing work that you are doing. So Thank you. And I'm sure that you will have a few more questions at the end of this session.
So, as you mentioned, you want insight about the international level and global level. So I would like now to give the floor to Paolo Gemma from the ITU. Thank you, Paolo, for being here.
So as an international organization, you act at the global level and you work on international standards and tools. So please can you tell us more about this approach?
>> PAOLO GEMMA: Okay. Thank you, Anais.
ITU is a UN national agency, to be clear what is ITU. We have around a big membership including 153 administration, more than 900 private sector company from the ICT world. So carrier, operator and manufacturer.
We work a lot in the past in the working group where -- working party, sorry, where I am the chairman. And we developed and we passed recommended standard for mitigative effect of climate change in some case and a guidance on smart solution for telecom side for data center and telecommunication boon that we have just published last year.
We developed some years ago, and I think that in future we will update best practice for data center to reduce the impact of the data center.
And, okay, now we are moving on the circular economy point. That is one of the bigger topic to reduce the impact of ICT in the future, as I'm taking what Anais said on the starting point is the idea to have equipment that have a longer life that are full maybe.
How much is possible recyclable to recover all of the substances that are inside is something that this time is starting think about, okay, a standardization level. We need to develop a common understanding of what is the ecological design not just to avoid the stranger issue.
And how we said, the discussion of different topic on what is circular, what means circular design. And we also -- what we try to have some KPI on how to set is a product circular or not. This is something that we are developing.
And we hope that in future we will continue on this way to help the companies and the actors to be more circular in the future. Recently, we developed a series of documents. One is a standard summary report just for only the Paris Agreement setting a target for the ICT sector. A target for the CO2 reduction. This is a document that was made by ITU in collaboration with GSI, SMA, and STPI. So we give a trajectory for the ICT sector to be clean and reduce the CO2 emission, if I remember well, in 2030 by 50% and then go completely neutral
Following this document, we developed also some guideline, one of our operator on how to reduce waste CO2 emission, and the other that was just approved over one month ago for the manufacturer.
So the first, is, okay, try to reduce or at least some action to reduce the consumption, sure. And this is the first step to become more energy efficiency with respect to what they are now in different sector. And not only data center and also the network and so on. And should we use more, how much is possible renewable energy.
Which should be a big issue because, as we know, some operator just now have 100% of energy is renewable, but some other no because it is -- the problem is to have renewable energy. This is a very big challenges for the future, I think.
We developed also a framework for the countries to integrate the national climate change adaptation. So in a sense how to use ICT to help people on the climate change, how to combat the climate change. That means that all of system but also build infrastructure more resilience because it is what we see with the effect of climate change is something that exist practically.
And we cannot want to enter on this discussion, but the effect is with the atmospheric like a thunderstorm is always becoming more and more harder to be expected to survive through this. And this is something that we are making.
Following this, we are also helping some countries to implement in their legislation some of our recommendations, some of our work suggestion. We are working also on e-waste management, but from some countries that is also a very big issue on how to recovery e-waste, how to manage e-waste and so on.
And on this we wrote also a series of standards and guideline on how to implement e-waste management in countries, giving some objective.
And with some final look is completely separate from the rest, but in reality that is the first step for the circle to become circular economy. Because to become circular economy, manufacturers can design a product that can be recyclable and work for a long life and not just one year.
But at the end, someone need to recover report. And this is a very big challenge in the future because it is hard to convince people, normal people not to put away -- use the cell phone just in waste management but go to a recycling system.
Because ITU is working not only with Europe, it is with all of the world. Also developing countries and so on. And which the situation is very different, the solution could be very different with respect to Europe. And this is something that would be very big challenge for the future in how to solve some issue also in energy point of view because it is -- as someone okay, I am from Europe, I am from Italy, so I know the Italian situation which is very different from the rest.
And it was nice in ITU to see the different problem that they have because a solution that is working from Europe cannot work from China, cannot work from Africa or from Asia.
So we need to find a good solution and also be a little flexible to adapt to the local situation. If we think to write a standard that is working for only for Europe is not our goal and we fail our activity on this.
So we need to -- when we write the standard, we need to find the consensus and agreement between all of the people and all of the countries involved, not only one. This is sometime very big discussion on this, okay.
And as we said, normally ITU is contribution driven activities. So we work on the contribution from our members, from our delegate. So it is not something posed by us or by me or by the director of ITU. We are looking for contribution from all of the people. So it's also from -- we look to work with GreenPeace, if possible. And we work with Vodafone, sure. And all the other people here, it would be nice to work together with all of you.
And this is all. If you have a question, please, I can answer later.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you so much, Paolo. Yes, I imagine that it is quite complicated to find consensus and solution that could be shared at the international level. At the European level, sometime it is quite complicated. So at the UN international I can understand that it's a big challenge. Thank you.
I would like to welcome Agnieszka from Vodafone. Hello. Thank you, Agnieszka, for being here. So please, you are from the private side. So please can you tell us more what your company is doing on the issue and how they to run the business taking into account this environmental impact of the sector.
>> AGNIESZKA SKORUPINSKA: Thank you, Anais. I'm very happy to be here.
So yes, I do represent Vodafone telecommunications provider with presence in Europe and in Africa. We are also present in India and Australia but in joint a joint venture format. But overall, 24 markets being covered by the Vodafone networks.
So we do see all the complexities of the geographies in terms of environmental improvements and tools available.
Our motto is to connect for a better future, and we are optimistic about how technology and connectivity including 5G can change the future in a positive way and make sure it does not come at the cost of our planet. Our sector has an environmental impact. We do not shy away from it.
We are however, at least in Europe, compared very often to the airline industry. The difference is we believe that our impact is more easily solvable. I will try to explain that a little bit more in detail later on.
So our two material issues are energy and carbon emissions, and e-waste generation. We take a global approach, setting ambitious roles across all of our markets. But markets are also encouraged to move quicker and be more ambitious where they come.
So we have a very good example with Kenya, for instance. So Safaricom, our Kenyan brand, signed up already last year for SBTs, society-based target already last year whereas Vodafone as a group will only join the community in two weeks.
The implementation opportunities, challenges vary depending on country and continent, as we said. It represents challenge in small market, but also greater opportunity to shape change at scale. So Europe operations, for instance, will be 100% renewable by July 2021. And African operations by 2025.
Previous speakers mentioned that, indeed, it depends very much on the local market situation. So whereas I mentioned Kenya being a good people, we had some troubles, for instance, in South Africa where we don't have access to renewables and so on.
In Europe it is much more easier because of the current political approach, because of the EU leadership in green aspect and so on and so forth. So we see very, very well how important it is, this political momentum on this issue.
In terms of target settings, our focus is on energy efficiency renewable electricity, and elimination of network waste. We believe it will help us to mitigate the environmental impact of the growth of our business and our customers' increasing demand for data.
I'm happy to share with you after the session our last annual report where you can see that energy consumption stayed flat despite 49 increase in mobile data traffic, for instance, thanks to energy efficiency improvements mainly due to AI and smart metering.
It comes with additional CapEx, of course, but we also see it as an opportunity. We ourselves as a sector, we see increasing environmental incidents.
Last year we had our infrastructure damaged in Mozambique, for instance, because of cyclones. We see, of course, customers' trust and appreciation via green propositions and green products. And, of course, we see it as a business opportunity because with our Internet of Things business offering, we committed to reduce our consumers carbon emissions by 350 tons from 2020 to 2030. So it's an equivalent of Italian emissions, I believe, from 2019.
And we also want to shape this green ICT movement rather than simply follow the regulation.
In terms of concrete examples, so in the field of energy efficiency, our main focus is on base station sites and data centers which together account for 95% of the company's total global energy consumption. And we do it via energy management. So we hope if -- we have got, for instance, towers and data centers platform that enables monitoring and automated optimization of power and cooling systems. We have dynamic thermal management of our technology centers low power modes for radio equipment, et cetera, et cetera.
On renewable energy mix, we're technically economically feasible. We are installing onsite renewable generation, and where not possible we use PPAs and then cover the remaining consumption via credible renewable tariffs or guarantees of origin.
And network waste, we have 2025 target for reusing and recycling and reselling 100% of equipment. We created internal marketplace so that all 24 markets can exchange equipment they want to share so that we have the secondary use of certain equipment internally.
Devices. Another big topic of the session. So, of course, we do not have full control of the system. We can maybe do 30% of the value chain so we do collect phones. We offer device care, we recycle. But all of the initiatives should happen in cooperation with the manufacturers.
So what we do, in spite of all these restrictions, we have launched Red Loves Green -- red is our logo -- initiative. So it is a customer offer on eco-friendly accessories, and we also have a partnership with Fairphone.
And we also launched half-sized SIM card format that half of the amount of plastic used to produce these. It is provided to customers in several European markets already. And we are progressively replace the use of full-size card holders across all Vodafone markets. So again, it shows that one good story can be then spread more widely.
We, of course, work as an industry as well within GSMA. We are currently working on equating initiative to give our consumers information according to the one unified methodology on green products. Because what happens now is that every operator has its own methodology and same phone might be ranked differently, which is quite misleading.
And it didn't work because we all tried it and now we decided to join forces to create something jointly to unify a little bit.
And finally, we also do a lot of work internally as well because we believe that we can all reduce our internet-related impact. So we often share some advice at the individual level. Using smaller devices, using and wi-fi, using ad blockers, watching YouTube without video.
Just to conclude, the industry is taking action. And as said in one of the latest economies, green energy is 21st century power that will make geopolitics. And I think we can all sign up to that. Thank you. I will stop here, happy to answer any questions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Agnieszka. Thank you for all these examples and for giving us insights about all these initiatives and we can see that it is possible to act. Thank you very much. I'm sure we will have a lot of questions.
You can -- everyone can ask question in the Q&A, and we will take the question at the end.
So now I would like to welcome Gauthier, our last panelist. So Gauthier, hello, thank you for being here.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: Hello.
>> MODERATOR: You have been working for quite some time on this issue. And you are especially an expert of web design, but you have also a comprehensive vision of the value chain. So please, can you give us your opinion about the issue and what we could do to tackle it?
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: Yeah, sure. I sent some slides. I don't know if we can go to the first one.
>> MODERATOR: You can share your screen.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: Okay, great. I'm trying to share my screen. Let me go back. Okay.
So you should see.
>> MODERATOR: Yes.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: To introduce what we are talking about, or to give the perspective of what we are talking about, it is important for me and also from the French perspective to show that there is more than one factor. We are not only talking about carbon emission or GHG emission there.
And we have to understand where we need to prioritize. And what is the most important action to be taken?
So it was important to have this graphic showing you where actually the impact seems to be happening on four factors.
So here I'm talking from the perspective of LCA methodology. We have the chance in France of some digital service IC experts, and have some organizations working on mapping the impact of the digital sector.
So the first thing is to understand where the impacts are going between manufacturing and use. So far, we are not able to integrate the end of life in digital service LCAs so we are still missing that part.
But so far, we can kind of have an idea of where the impacts are going between manufacturing and use. So since it's LCA, we don't use electricity as a factor because electricity is not a normative factor. It's just a vector of energy and we need to look at the source of energy. So we look at primary energy consumption instead of electricity.
We look, obviously at GHG emission and what we call abiotic or mineral resources consumption, non-renewable sources consumption, and water consumption. So you can see that there is still like we still need to work on the number there, on the data.
But just when it comes to energy it is half and half between manufacturing and use. And then most of the impacts really when we look at resources is water comes from manufacturing.
And then for GHG and energy, half and half are splitting with use. So knowing that, we also need to look which kind of -- in which kind of activities, industrial activities and use are actually making these impacts.
And that's why we -- when you do LCA methodology and even when you look at energy intensity of data transmission, you will look at three different ports that are data centers, networks, and user equipment. And we know now that most of the impact comes from the user equipment.
It is just because there is loads of them. In France, from some French literature that we have, we assume there is right now on earth 34 billion active equipment right now.
And the fact is we are shipping on average 1.3 billion smartphone every year. It has an impact. And yet also we are supposed to also deploy billions of connected objects. This will come at a cost that will be mostly supported or that will be seen on the manufacturing side which is where we should actually look a lot right now.
And it is also important to know that even if all these impacts are coming right now and we start to map them a bit more correctly than before, and we have a lot of improvement when it comes to energy efficiency materials or energy efficiency methodologies; but yet these improvements doesn't mean that we go with the efficiency of use.
I quite like this little graphic. It is focused on the U.S.A. And maybe before it should be worthwhile mentioning that the European Commission just released a big paper on the energy consumption of data center in Europe. And they estimate that the electricity consumption increased by 42% in eight years. So now we are consuming like 73 terawatts per hour for data centers. And eight years ago it was 50.
So even with the incredible improvements of materials, the energy consumption is still increasing. So there is a rebound effect here.
So and also to come back at the use, that's a graphic mostly from the U.S. and it has to be understood in the very specific network infrastructure existing in the U.S. But even if the bandwidth or the average speed in U.S. has increased a lot, at the same time, so the load pay, the page load time has not decreased, it has increased over time in nine years, the last nine years.
So we are also facing there is a question when it comes to use. We do have more efficient materials, more efficient services. But yet we are thinking from the perspective of abundancy, of material abundancy, of energy abundancy and bandwidth and also calculation point abundancy, which is not the case in many, many countries, as it was said before.
It is also interesting to be a bit more cautious when we think of what we can do with energy with technical improvements because there is politics that has to be done, that is regulation that has to be done. And that is why we need a better understanding of the impacts and also of setting limits to specific options in our technological development.
And to phrase my -- actually, that is the way I'm -- this sentence is summing up my results right now. But I think that is kind of the goal that we are trying all to answer here. But I wanted to phrase it that way: What does the digital ecosystem, meaning infrastructure for services, look like in or for a world stabilized at plus 2 degrees and how do we go there?
And when we assess new technologies, new developments, and new ways of doing, we should get (break in audio) because right now the digital ecosystem is not making it. We are way off Paris Agreements and the transition targets.
So how do we get there? Because right now if the GHG emission are increasing at the gross rate at 8% or 7% a year. If we follow the Paris Agreements, we should reduce them by 5%. So we have a 12% gap right now. So how do we get there?
And we can't really assume that digitalizing other sectors will reduce energy consumption and GHG emission because yet we need proof of that. Right now We are assuming that based on microeconomic projections, which is not real-life physics.
And I was also asked by Anais and RCEP to talk about the GAFA and see what we can get from the GAFA or how we can be inspired by the GAFA. I mean as a French person we can only say that France isn't frail when it comes to the digital system. We are vassalized by American services and that is why you can see all of the traffic.
So like 55% of the French traffic is basically Netflix, Google, a camera, and Facebook. And the other one set of additional services and user experiences for earth and that the one leading us to a specific way of thinking about the digital ecosystem but they are not the digital ecosystem, we are just one way of doing it, one part of it, but they're getting more and more power.
And the fact is all of what we experience in Western Europe as digital services are based on specific economic model, basically selling ads or selling equipment.
So we also need to think that we cannot follow or be inspired by GAFA because they don't share the same goals. They have growth targets, economic growth targets that will not at some point may be possible to reduce, how should we reduce if we follow Paris Agreements?
So it's also up to regulators. It's also up to actors that are not following the same economic goals, suffering social environmental goals to act and not to follow these actors.
And finally, I have been working for the past three years on how the environmental crisis is shaping a way of -- a new way of doing digital services. And basically if I can sum up right now what is the practice now as a designer, as a researcher and as consultant at this level, we have to think there is two basic principles there that we need to follow how to start working.
We need to reduce the footprint anyway of digital services and infrastructure and we at the same time we need to respond effectively to needs expressed by the user, not pushed on the user. And at the same time, we can reinterrogate what they need, or if they truly need it, or if it's just like they're used to something by the other models like one proposed by the GAFA?
And in terms of operational goals, what should be the first thing to do is to do a service that promotes and increase the lifespan of equipment. That's the first source of impact, of physical impact and impact in the digital sector. So if a service is not designed with that in mind, it is also failing to address the impact.
And also you need to increase the lifespan of the service itself by making it relevant and making it easy to maintain. It's really important to think of maintenance right now when we think of digital developments.
And also one goal that is joining the two first is we optimize for the most difficult condition of use. We do not assume that everybody has iPhone 12, is using an iPhone 12 and 5G. We are optimizing for the 3G port network condition on the old equipment. And if it is working for this instance scenario then it will be working for everyone else.
And then we don't break users depending on the socioeconomic conditions. And also the thing that is quite fantastic when you are working with sustainable digital design is also a fantastic key to also introduce all the good practices that we need to sustain and to foster in the digital system. Data governance, accessibility, free software and so on. It is also a way to put all that in order.
And finally, and also one of the most important point, is you need to measure index, before after and during the project. You need to do running audits during your sprints. You need to know if you are doing it the right way.
And basically what you do in a daily basis when you are doing all of that is you arbitrate the investment and mostly the reduction or resource consumption and impacts of the given use. But also sometimes you are here to say that we need to invest a bit more energy, a bit more GHG emission and also a bit more electricity for a specific use because it's worthwhile, because it has to be done because that is where there is the most value.
But also you need to manage the overall reduction. And, yeah, I think I will stop there. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Gauthier, for this insight.
So now I have 10 minutes to ask questions. We took a bit more time, but I think it was important for you to say everything that you needed to say.
So please to -- I'm talking now to the audience, so you can ask question, all the question you may have in the Q&A box at the bottom of the screen. And we will take the last 30 minutes to discuss about your question.
And so I will use my last 10 minutes to ask question. And during this time, please ask all your question you may have, and we will select them.
So I have one question for the panelists. So we discussed about the level of intervention. And so we can see that an international level of action is needed, but that the local level it is also very important.
So what is your opinion of the good level of intervention? Is there a good level of intervention? What about coordination and cooperation at the international scale on this issue? And is there a good coordination between stakeholders and how to develop a truly integrated solution on this issue?
I don't know, maybe Paolo or Agnieszka, you want to say something about it.
>> AGNIESZKA SKORUPINSKA: Shall I start? Or Paolo, you wanted to go first?
It is a global issue, so I think we all agree that global response is needed. But what is interesting to see is that the EU took really this climate leadership as their key initiative. And, you know, the Green Deal was announced last year.
And you can see a series of various announcements now so by China and Japan and now hopefully the U.S. will be back on climate track, too. I think it is good to have some sort of leadership that can achieve a domino effect. That would my perception from the political point of view. Also, I see EU, EU green diplomacy is working quite well. So, as I said, we are present in Europe and in Africa, and some nice projects are being promoted by the EU in relation to certain African geographies.
But all of that with respect to local sensibilities and characteristics in order not to be perceived as an imposer or something.
But some sort of push is important, I think that the EU is taking this role and now it is up to every region to maybe react and see how they can feed into this into the future.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Paolo, maybe you want to complete?
>> PAOLO GEMMA: Yes. Speaking about the Green Deal is interesting of what is happening around the world.
During our last meeting we receive a contribution from Korea about Korea Green Deal, so they are implementing, starting a Green Deal similar to Europe with sometime different thinking, different implementation and so on.
And this is good. And at ITU we want to make like a place where to divide and share experience on this. But we want to collect different experience of Green Deal to put all common factor to help a different country to move on this. This is also something that is our role.
We also want to have -- be a place where people can share experience on this topic that is really very high-level topic, but we can solve only if we work all together, not separately. But as we said, a lot of time please consider it should be not only one solution but a lot of small solution that can create the mass to reduce the CO2 emission and have a better world always.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Yeah, sharing experience, it is something important that maybe, Ruiqi, do you want to develop a bit?
Because you said that sometime it was difficult for the company to know how to act for environment.
>> RUIQUI YE: Sure. Yes. I definitely agree with our first speaker that it's a global issue. So the carbon neutrality goal is important. And we are definitely seeing the EU taking a step ahead and China joining is a very big country with a lot of carbon emission, it is a strong signal to internal and domestic IT companies.
But also just with the ICT sector globally, I think there are a lot of experience that EU and U.S. companies can share to Asia or like Chinese companies in terms of how to do the resource hundred percent recycling and reuse and closed loop and with the renewable energy as well.
Sometimes the experience sharing is important to strengthening the sector confidence and expectation to go in that direction. Even though there are a lot of localized differences in these markets.
But overall, if the peers see their global peers are moving towards that direction, I think it sends a strong signal that is pretty helpful for the Chinese or Asian companies to see.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Gauthier, I don't know if you have something to say on this?
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: I think I have -- so far.
>> MODERATOR: That's okay.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: I think that my perspective here is more from the French point of view.
Because the problem that what we have right now is that France has done pretty good work on Green Deal so far, but we have a lot of good work in French. And I know that German is also doing good work and that is in German.
So we also have issue of communicating between countries in the EU. And the fact is we need a common place to share perspective what we are doing between communities.
But I see a lot of potential in the EU going forward with this topic. We have what we need to go forward, pushing what it means to have green IT policies. And also to emphasize something is to have more research funding dedicated to that. Because to be fair, we don't know that much yet, and we need so much more research. And we need to research not only on ways to assess the environmental impacts of the digital industry but also positive impact. We are very bad also at assessing positive impact, to be fair.
If you go to the LCA literature, you cannot really see if ICT is actually providing energy consumption. So that is also fact we need research in both cases. Because if we need to arbitrate because it is what would happen in the coming years, we need literatures going both sides, considering both sides, but also a big look into assessing local impacts.
>> MODERATOR: Yes, thank you. And do we have literature on the impact of ICT for greening other sectors?
>> PAOLO GEMMA: If I can speak as ITU, in reality, we published last year the first standard on our series on ICA methodology.
Just indicate on which is the input that ICT can have on other sector. This is where -- as we know, this is the first standard, but it is what we tried to put some step, some idea, some shared idea on this.
We hope that in future we will be sure an evolution of this because this is very, very, as Gauthier said, we need more research and more common idea onto what to do on this set.
Also, we publish this time a standard looking not only global stream but more on e-waste, which is really for moving from equipment to service with the server. It is also a very big topic that is a discussion. It is I think ten year, but people is thinking to go to the realization and saw what e-waste really mean and what should be really important.
As ITU, now we are working on artificial intelligence and other emerging technology from the environmental point of view because we think that this new technology have can a good impact on the way ICT and other sector. But we need to consider what we mean implementing artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence mean some calculation, some dataset in some way, some place.
So we need to see the balance between the benefit and the mal effect when we implement the new technologies. This is something that need to be considered.
That is at one point, but it was never done in the past in reality and now we are in this situation.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah, I talk about this because it is not the focus on the session, but it is often a counter-argument that the people used to underline when it come to the impact of the ICT on environment.
So that was important to underline that lots of things remain to be done in order to find the right balance.
I don't know, Gauthier, if you want to add something. You're on mute.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: I think Agnieszka wanted to say something so maybe I can --
>> AGNIESZKA SKORUPINSKA: I wanted to add because, indeed, Gauthier made a lot of relevant points and I agree with him on most of them.
We are, again, laissez-faire. And we should all -- this green and digital transformation should be regulated. We, indeed, have more and more devices but also these devices are being used -- and to go to your point about the enablement -- these devices are used to save carbon emission, to save carbon emissions elsewhere.
So we do not have scientific research, but what we do is our own measurement with the help of Carbon Trust. So that is an external audit, sustainable audit firm. And they try to see what is the impact of a connected lighting, for instance, in the city.
And there are already some findings from one of the Spanish cities that shows, for instance, that the street lighting energy consumption fell by 68% thanks to that.
And you have a variety of examples like that, smart logistics. So optimizing road management can allow fuel consumption being down up to 30%.
So all these things are happening, and we are trying to measure them. And I think that the taxonomy exercise at the EU level and the EU recovery dual digital and green work stream will also help to somehow materialize it and to have more data around that.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: If I can follow that is that right now I'm work on analyzing literature there is on how the digital sector could reduce carbon emission by looking at the same space targets and looking at some documents produced by ITU.
Also based on the plus 1.5 projects. And also based on the literatures. And the fact is it's quite hard to understand how the projections are made, but I understand that it's projections. And mixing sometimes LCAs and also mixing macroeconomic projection.
So far, I'm a bit uncertain about how digital industry can actually reduce carbon emissions. Because if you look at RCAs, if you take a scope on the RCA, you see the true reduction. And the more you open the scope and the less there is an energy reduction, and you can see the more rebound impacts -- sorry, rebound effects. That is the concern I have right now.
And I think we didn't take enough time to actually consider if digitalization in every sector in any case at any time is actually useful or working regarding transition goals.
And to go further with that, I think something that we really need, in other words, in other global aspects, datasets for LCAs. Public data. Something that is not privately owned but that can be used to do LCAs on the common methodology and on the common dataset. That would be quite fantastic thing if we could have that.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you very much. So I will come back to the main focus of the impact of the ICT in itself.
I see we have one question from the audience. I don't know if the panelists can see the question, but I will read it out loud for everyone.
So are there any specific partnerships or collaborations that you all identify are missing from your respective work? There is a lot happening in this this field, but most conversations tend to be siloed. What will help your work?
Maybe Greenpeace, you would like to begin, Ruiqi?
>> RUIQUI YE: Thanks. Sorry, can I clarify on the question? Is it asking partnership that is missing right now?
>> MODERATOR: Yeah. Are there any specific partnership or collaboration that you identify that are missing today for your work?
>> RUIQUI YE: Right, since we are specifically focusing on the energy part of the ICT sector, I think with China's big ITs going abroad in the India market and in other Southeast Asia markets, and these regional level of low carbon standards, I think we need to talk about that.
I know that the EU has a lot of discussions on this already, but with the new markets, I think we also we need to be focusing on them a lot since they are growing rapidly. And it is important that they are looking at carbon right now with new infrastructure.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Maybe Paolo, I see you unmuted. Maybe you have something to say on this?
>> PAOLO GEMMA: From ITU perspective, I think what actually the partnership that we are missing now is from other industry.
Because in reality what is happening, we think from IoT point of view, or so on, we are introducing ICT in other industry and not only in ICT.
So this is a little missing the counterpart because we are writing the standard for IoT, from management of IoT, but we have no collaboration or participation from, I don't know, the transport industry or the right industry. This is something that is missing.
What I see is that there is a lot of forum, a lot of company, a lot of globalists working on different aspect sometime in competition wanting to have but this is something that we cannot have to progress in reality.
To find the way to collaborate between the different organization should be a fantastic way to progress. It is not so simple, in reality, it is really not simple.
And I agree about the RCA. But I am not an analyst, but I understand, I read and follow the discussion that we have inside the queue and in our organization about RCA and, frankly speaking, if you don't have a fixed rule you cannot tell think what you want is incredible obviously.
And for this, the real need for standard on this, not only from ITU, from my team and other, we need a standard strategy.
I can set what is a fantastic goal, and they might say this is bad, so we need that common understanding on what we are doing.
>> MODERATOR: Gauthier, maybe you want to say something.
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: I can only say that for me the main thing that we need so far is public environmental debt when it comes to digital products. And just knowing how to do is the ICR digital service is so tricky.
So if there is not common data shared along the value chain, it will be hard to get results that are relevant for everybody.
>> PAOLO GEMMA: If I can answer to this about the public data.
We start in ITU to have idea to build a database I think eight years ago, but we failed because there is this data owned by some company that sold. And so we -- it is impossible to have this data hub because of the way business that is -- but it is the reality, I think. Okay. We can try, but this is the reality. Unlikely.
>> MODERATOR: And what is the collaboration today between ITU and other organization such as the European Commission and so on and maybe --
>> PAOLO GEMMA: Okay, we have a very good collaboration with ETSI, that is the European Telecommunication Standard Institute. With that, with them, they write the common what you said, the technical line standard. But we are working together to the same standard.
And, okay, we have a collaboration sharing topics with Cenelec, for example and we try not to -- how you said, any time thinking so there is a sort of collaboration.
But it is not so easy because it is -- to collaborate we need to be a minimal, too, and sometimes there is very, very big competition between standard organization that is -- from my personal point of view, it is crazy.
Because when I start to particularly build this collaboration with ETSI, I'm active on both side. And at a certain point, we are in two different room with the same people to discuss the same thinking and have two different result. That is completely crazy. That is completely crazy.
This is why we are unable to find an agreement to well. With our organization, it is a little more difficult because there is competition, different membership, and different economically pushing because ITU and ETSI, their standard free of charge. Other organization are selling the standards. So this is a really big point.
And for me strange to have a standard on something and you spend the money, a lot of money really. Obviously, it is -- I don't know if in future it will be changing, but the service is actually -- we have to go with what we have so.
>> MODERATOR: Actually, it is true that it is rare to see that we have competition in standards and stuff like that.
Maybe you can have competition with your competitors on the topics and maybe it could be productive on the side.
What do you think about it and what did your collaboration and competition with other private companies?
>> AGNIESZKA SKORUPINSKA: It is an interesting question because yeah, we do all want to differentiate and show that we are best-in-class. But yeah, I mentioned the example of rating our headsets and phones.
And when we were doing it on the individual level, it didn't really work because you have different market sensitivities and unstandardized procedures.
So now we see that cooperation actually works better, which is an interesting learning. So let's see how this goes.
Of course, the more standards we have -- I keep on touching the button. So the more standards we have, the more certainty we have as well because it is not an easy exercise for us either to see what really -- what is really solid data. And, you know, we don't want to be -- we don't want our sector to be accused of brainwashing or something. We want to -- we want to make it right.
But it needs to happen at the whole value chain level because, as I say, we are just part of it. So we need phone manufacturers onboard, other sectors. You know, like Paolo mentioned, energy and transport, all those sectors that digitized themselves.
You know, it really has to be a big exercise, be comprehensive exercise, avoiding siloes, and it is a very, very tough task. But, yeah, it is the only way out, I guess.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah. And, in fact, regarding data-driven regulation, you know at Arcep we believe in data-driven regulation.
So I understand from what you all said that we have a problem with data because we data, but we need to collect data, and we have a problem of privacy for beginning. And after we need to harmonize the data that we could collect.
So, first of all, do you have an idea of which data we would need to incentivize citizens maybe to change their behavior and maybe to orient the behavior of the companies?
And what could we do to collect this data? Should we change something in the law at the European level, or maybe at the international level, but how could we do that?
What would be your idea and proposition on this?
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: If I may. The fact -- I think I'm not really sure about putting it on the side of the user.
Because they don't share that much responsibility of the manufacturing. I mean if you've got the impact, they cannot do much in the manufacturing. So maybe the main user is actually the person who is digging in the ground to get minerals. So it's also a change of perspective.
The fact that you might as a user of a smartphone understand that the impact when it comes to minerals, energy, water and so on is to get all of that because right now we just focus on energy, carbon. But resources and water are fundamental. And in many countries in which there is mining exploitation there will be water complications.
And I know -- I don't know how like in China how it is going, but you are slightly famous for the BAO2 lake in Mongolia for the extraction, for the extraction hazards that's caused in many places in China. And I know it might be quite hard to focus on the resources consumption from the Chinese point of view.
I know more the south part, Shenzhen, but not the north part. On the user part I would not put that much hold on it. The only thing they can do is to keep the equipment as long as possible knowing that they have been designed not to stay, not to be working that long.
But the fact I mean when we look at the lifespan of a phone in France, of a smartphone is 22 months, something like that. It is going up because of sales because the shipping of smartphones is going down.
But that is the main thing you can do, keep your stuff longer.
>> AGNIESZKA SKORUPINSKA: If I could just add one thing. I agree that not too much burden should be given to customer.
But where we still see gaps is actually a general education on climate challenges and consequences of your actions. So, for instance, when we offer recycling possibilities in the various markets, we can maybe see three or four markets where there is high uptick. And others prefer to keep their phones in the drawer, for instance, because they don't fully grasp yet what are the consequences and options, and so on.
We should really also do the major educational campaign. We did recently a study with our institute where only 54% of people interviewed, and it was 13 countries in Europe and a thousand people per country, only 54% knew what the Green Deal was. And we tend to talk within our bubbles, and we do not translate it into our country.
I think also as Polish, we are not yet the green champion. So we need to also localize a lot and communicate better and educate better.
There is the fake news and information on the internet. All these memes circulating that a Google search is the same energy as boiling a cup of tea. There is also some sort education effort that we need to do to make it work.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah, Gauthier and Ruiqi.
>> RUIQUI YE: Sorry, I just want to add something. I think it is quite an interesting question to be asked because in China I'm seeing still in the energy consumption and carbon emission a lack of transparency from big companies, bit IT and telecom companies. So I think we are talking about different stages of sustainability here at the global level.
Our ranking surveyed -- we are looking at 16 big data center or co-location companies and like eight co-locations and eight public cloud service companies. And probably only four among the 16 has released any electricity consumption. And only one or two released carbon emission data. So even just that really basic level of transparency is still lacking in the China market.
And these are big companies, you know, like Alibaba, Tencent, and GDS, they are rising pretty quickly. I think it is important that at the global level different markets should hold these big companies all accountable. Like we set the global expectation and standard. So just want to leave that here.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Gauthier, maybe you had something?
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: Just to jump on what Agnieszka was saying.
The question of education for the sector is quite specific because we also have to remind that maybe on the global infrastructure that came with the discourse of being dematerialized. It never happened before. You cannot access this course when you are making roads and so on.
And so we also have to come back on 30 years of discourse of democratization. And the first maybe educational project is just about getting people to understand the materiality of the digital sector.
And not put them responsible for something that they don't really see or something they don't really or not feel them guilty or put them a burden for something they cannot even see.
I think the education about digital materiality is very important because it is very specific this infrastructure. And if we can do something on the user level it is pretty much that. We have to show them how does it work.
I don't know, I mean like in high school in France like when there is technology class, students will be -- will learn how to use Microsoft Office. They would rather learn how to repair a smartphone; they would rather learn what is antenna and how to look for that rather than trying to use Microsoft Word.
We need to learn the materiality. That is the first educational project of the digital sector. And then maybe understand the virtual impact. But they need to learn what the server is.
>> MODERATOR: That's true. It's a question of education on this topic. So I see that it is 10:56. So we have four left minutes.
Maybe to conclude you want to say a few word of conclusion, and maybe each one of you could say a few sentence about the main message that you want to leave to the audience on the topic.
I don't know, maybe Ruiqi, do you want to begin?
>> RUIQUI YE: Thanks. I think it is clear that the ICT sector and the IT sector overall has an important role to play in our world carbon future.
I believe at a global level a lot of the newer companies and U.S. companies has led the way to 100% renewable energy. And I think that the rapidly rising Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Tencent could follow and scale up their current action.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Maybe Paolo, you want to follow and to say a few last words?
>> PAOLO GEMMA: I think that we need all of these companies collaborating and share experience as much as possible at the global level and to share the common understanding of what we are making.
I'm a little aware what we said with the U.S. company and the European company are so advanced. Sometimes we have a little different opinion on this because we need to make clear different between what is efficiency for energy. Because efficient could be very, very fantastic and which vary on consumption. Not always going the same direction.
If you look on 5G, 5G said it would increase a lot of efficiency, which is true. They increase the efficiency around 100%.
But the problem is the bandwidth for data was increased 1,000%. So the result is the power consumption of 5G is higher, as I think you know very well, is higher than the 3G and 4G.
We need to be clear and give the same real message to the people and share the information with peers. This is very, very important on this.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Agnieszka?
>> AGNIESZKA SKORUPINSKA: So I would not be an industry representative if I didn't conclude with the sentence that the questions is not a solution, we should allow the technology co-development but in a regulated and climate sensitive way.
And we should work all together as traditional institutional and international institutions and governments and citizens and businesses to make it work. I keep having in my head this motto of the board game, I don't know if you know it, it is In the Loop board game and they say tell me and I will forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I might understand. I think that concludes well our discussion. Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Gauthier?
>> GAUTHIER ROUSSILHE: I will conclude with the question I've put on before if I'm thinking about the perspective of the regulator or even the industry leader, I should always question myself when presented a new technical solution, does it -- how does it the answer -- is it an ecosystem that answers the question? What does the digital ecosystem look like in w a world stabilized at plus two degrees? Does it fit or not fit with the data available now?
And when you go from this perspective, you also understand that there is a huge gap between where we are right now and where we should be in 30 years.
And you also understand that many models that we have right on the digital industry does not fit. We cannot continue with the industry that is shipping 1.4 billion smartphones every year and the economic model that come with that.
We also have to shift, and we also have to change. So it is not even about the cross anymore. It is that we are moving -- we are not going in the right direction. So we need to change the economic model. And then we need a lot of research on that.
And it is also a question of reorienting what we think of progress. Because if you think of just making affordable phones for 5G and so on, yeah, you need a lot of research funding, marketing and that.
But to do a smartphone that would last 25 years requires as much research, as much financing, new economic models, and as much regulation than the other one. Just a different way of thinking of progress including in the crisis.
And to finish with what Paolo was saying, and also in terms of the Chinese perspective, 5G doesn't answer the question. It does not show us what the digital ecosystem looks like at plus 2 degrees. We are just putting the coin into the -- but we are not answering any question regarding sustainability. That is a fact.
And even the CEO of Huawei, also -- what is his name -- I think like in 2019 in the Tencent conference that even 5G is not what the societies are needing.
That is also interesting discourse in the industry going on and there is like tensions of progress reshaping the industry.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I just have to conclude, and to thank you one more time, to you all for your contributions and your very interesting participation today.
So if I have to wrap it up, so a lot of work has been done but there is still a lot of work remaining to be done.
And we need collaboration, we need data, we need more research and studies in order to know what we can do to achieve the UN agenda and the only plus two degrees Celsius.
So I think we can be optimistic, but we still need to work, and the global implementation is needed, and we need adaptation at the global level. And the more important is transparency and we need to work on data.
So thank you very much for being there today. I hope you learned something about this important topic of environmental impacts of ICT.
So thank you so much.