The digital sector represents 4.4% of France’s carbon footprint: this is the figure revealed in the latest opinion from the Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME), published on January 9. It thus revises upwards the 2018 estimate of 2.5%, which did not take into account data centers located outside the country and which fuel the digital uses of the French.

These new estimates estimate that the sector – data centers, networks and terminals – accounts for 11% of national electricity consumption. However, they are based on figures from 2022, before the advent of generative artificial intelligence for the general public, which we know, without yet having precise figures, how energy-intensive it is . However, all the forecasts show that while all other sectors are pursuing reduction policies, digital is preparing to continue exponential growth.

A look back at the main conclusions of the study, which dissects the carbon footprint of digital technology  : the weight of equipment, still in the majority, is gradually being competed with by that of uses, which are experiencing growth with the support of data centers that is unlikely to dry up.

Equipment, fighting against cultural obsolescence

According to the opinion of Ademe, digital-related equipment (mainly televisions, computers and smartphones) represents half of the sector’s carbon footprint. An impact mainly linked to their manufacture and the extraction of associated metals: a prospective analysis by Ademe identified around fifty of them in the 20 most common digital devices, among which it conducted a prospective analysis on 25 main ones .

Five of them have been designated as critical (tin, silver, ruthedium, nickel and antimony) in view of the supply risks that weigh on them from a geopolitical, environmental and social point of view.

While equipment continues to increase in volume, its share in this footprint has significantly decreased compared to the 2018 estimates, which put it at 85%. This change is linked to the methodological change made in the new study, but also undoubtedly to the mobilization of certain levers: the eco-design of products, the extension of their lifespan through practices such as repair (and the implementation of repairability or durability indices provided for by the Agec law), reconditioning or even better maintenance of objects.

A functional economy, albeit in its infancy, is beginning to emerge, less focused on possession than on the use and sharing of equipment.

Growing uses

On the other hand, the work of Ademe reveals another trend: the rise of data centers, which constitute the second major part of the carbon footprint of digital technology.

While they only represented 15% in the previous study, they weigh in this new estimate for 46%, the remaining 4% being linked to networks. On the one hand because the foreign data centers used for French purposes have this time been taken into account, on the other hand because these infrastructures have multiplied in France in recent years.

Their colossal energy consumption is as worrying as their water consumption and the role they can play in soil artificialization and land tension.

However, with data centers, it is our use of digital technology that is directly at stake: the more digital technology we consume, the more we need these data centers. With the data it had, up until 2022, Ademe has already tried to dissect our most demanding uses of digital technology. A complex task to carry out, where gray areas remain, but which highlights several elements.

For example, while video represents about two-thirds of data flows, it is responsible for one-third of the environmental impacts of digital technology. Where do the others come from? To find out, we still need to analyze the different digital services in detail (video games, professional uses, etc.).

However, this balance is set to change: the widespread deployment of generative AI for various purposes is expected to cause the energy consumption of data centers to explode, although it is not yet possible to assess by how much. While the impact of AI has so far been mainly linked to its training and retraining, its use – with much more energy-intensive queries than a traditional query – is now playing an increasing role.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) thus predicts a doubling of global electricity consumption linked to data centers, particularly dedicated to AI, between 2022 and 2026. The tech giants have in fact announced that they want to double the number and computing power of data centers worldwide by 2026. In other words, repeating in just 2 years the growth of the last 20 years… and at the same time breaking their climate commitments.

But if the creation of data centers is rapid, energy power must follow. There are major uncertainties about the availability, in such a short term, of sufficient energy to meet this demand without reviving the need for fossil fuels. Betting on the development of nuclear or renewable energy to compensate for this increase seems a very bold bet.

All the more so since other sectors also need, as part of the energy transition, increasing access to “clean” energy.

Essential sobriety

In this context, reducing the environmental impact of digital technology must involve measures such as extending the lifespan of equipment, eco-designing digital services (streaming platforms, video games, mobile applications, etc.) and improving the energy performance of data centers. They will have an impact on the environmental impact of digital technology.

But they will not be enough, on their own, to compensate for the worrying growth prospects of the sector – even in terms of equipment, the renewal of which risks being accelerated by AI-related functionalities and the proliferation of connected objects – which also require mobilizing the lever of sobriety. From now on, a reflection on our uses of digital technology is essential to discern those that need to be reduced and those that need to be slowed down upstream of their development, when they are not relevant or at least not a priority in light of other issues.

On a French scale, this also involves thinking about and regulating the increasing establishment of data centers, to take into account their local impacts (energy but also with regard to water and artificialization of soils).

While many unknowns remain in the face of the explosion of AI and, at the same time, many players are brandishing this revolution as a tool for the environment, caution is required. France is already a leader in public policies on the environmental impact of digital technology; it must continue in this logic of anticipation of innovation, measure its effects to better understand them and support more sober and more sovereign solutions, such as low tech and open digital technology.

Author Bio: Mathieu Wellhoff is Head of the Digital Sobriety Department at Ademe (Ecological Transition Agency)