The day after tomorrow, on Earth Overshoot Day, humanity around the world has used up more natural resources than the earth produces in a year. From an environmental point of view, we then live on credit for the rest of the year.
Annual consumption has exceeded available resources since 1970, the year Earth Overshoot Day was December 29th. And always earlier in the year.
The fact is: we have to reverse this negative trend. And for that we need digitization. Because through the targeted and accelerated use of digital technologies, we can significantly reduce our emissions.
Example Germany: Forecasts by the industry association Bitkom show that we can achieve around a third of the CO2 reductions for Germany’s climate target in 2030 through more digitization. Globally, digital technologies and services can reduce CO2 emissions by 15 to 35 percent by 2030, as analyzed by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The core of digitization is the networking and control of devices. This is made possible by ultra-fast telecommunications networks. The 5G mobile communications standard alone allows one million devices to be networked and managed over one square kilometer. The networks form digital lifelines for smart mobility, digital services and networked production.
The digitization push during the first corona lockdown provided an idea of what is feasible. People stayed in the home office and experienced a trade fair visit via virtual reality. Annual savings of more than 22 million tons of CO2 would be possible if one fifth of all business trips in the EU were replaced by video conferences.
Much more is possible if we combine the reduction in traffic with smart mobility concepts. Anyone on the move can organize their own mobility via mobile communications and optimize the intelligent linking of modes of transport.
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Travelers benefit from anonymized cell phone data to calculate traffic flows. This reduces traffic jams, lowers CO2 emissions and optimizes timetables and fleet capacities in public areas.
In private transport, car-to-car communication and autonomous driving improve traffic flows. In the logistics area, freight routes are optimized and empty runs are avoided. According to Juniper Research, intelligent traffic management can save 205 million tons of CO2 worldwide by 2027.
In industry, around 17 percent of the total CO2 savings required in Germany could be achieved with accelerated digitization. The use of digital twins accounts for half of this potential.
With the virtual image of a real product or a production plant, these can be created and tested in a resource-saving manner. Entire production lines are put into operation using virtual reality applications before they are physically started in order to optimize process flows.
The energy required for digitization must be significantly lower than the savings achieved
Admittedly, digitization also consumes resources and causes CO2 emissions. The telecommunications industry must make this climate effect transparent in a self-critical manner and act in an environmentally friendly manner itself.
An everyday example makes this clear: half an hour of video streaming causes a good 1.6 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. Streaming saves resources if no DVDs are produced for it or there is no need to go to the cinema.
However, if the time and money saved by streaming lead to people celebrating an entire Netflix Saturday instead of a 90-minute DVD on Saturday evening, then a rebound effect can occur: the energy requirements of digitization will be greater than the savings that can be achieved as a result.
If companies and people are aware of this effect and we have more transparency about the CO2 footprint of the digital, then we can better counteract it together.
The ecological balance of digitization depends crucially on its energy requirements. Because the enormously increasing amounts of data flowing through the telecommunications networks require a lot of electricity.
Eight to nine percent of the total electricity consumption in Germany is currently attributable to the use of information and communication technologies. It is estimated that this share will multiply in this decade.
The telecommunications industry is countering this trend with increasing energy efficiency in data centers, networks and mobile phone standards. 5G requires up to 90 percent less power per byte than previous generations.
The latest building control technology reduces the power requirements of data centers. And consumers get more energy-efficient end devices.
It will certainly be a challenge for the industry to make great leaps towards even greater energy efficiency in the future. Because the technological scope is getting smaller. It is therefore necessary to stay tuned and develop further innovations in favor of the climate.
Industry associations: The CO2 savings potential is many times higher than the CO2 emissions
We need digitization to achieve climate goals. That is why business and politics are focusing on sustainable digitization, in which the CO2 savings through the digital must be many times higher than the CO2 emissions caused by them.
The chances are good. According to Bitkom, the CO2 savings potential of the most important digital technologies in Germany is up to six times higher than their own emissions. Internationally, according to calculations by the European industry association ETNO, mobile phone technologies alone can help reduce CO2 emissions in the economy tenfold.
Accelerated digitization, transparency about their carbon footprint and increasing energy efficiency are essential to unlock the full potential of digitization for our planet. So we have a real chance to bring Earth Overshoot Day back to where it was in 1970: to the end of the year.
About the author: Markus Haas is CEO of the telecommunications provider O2 Telefónica in Germany.
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