sustainable communication
DESCRIPTION
For the course Sustainable DevelopmentTRANSCRIPT
JORGE ZAPICO
KTH / CSC / Media / Industrial EcologyCentre for Sustainable Communicationshttp://sustainablecommunications.org
[email protected]://jorgezapico.com
MJ1261 Hållbar Utveckling
2009/10/08 That’s me!
I have a bachelor in computer science and a master in sustainable technology. They seem unrelated, but I’ll present my view on their connections.
Computers and ICT have changed the way we live and work, the way we grow, learn and communicate with others
Everywhere in the world
But at the same time the old industrial way keeps going.
And we are still using this kind of stuff.
And environmental problems keep growing: climate change, pollution, resource depletion,
And this is the result (The graph is CO2 concentration)
So, what do these two things have in common?
A.DIRECT IMPACT
The environmental impact of hardware production, usage and end of life
Accelerating development Design for obsolescence Increased consumerism
We buy more and more electronic devices, and new things keep coming. For instance I want one of these new tablets coming soon.. And they will be old technology after one year.
A laptop average replacement time is 3 years
For mobile phones it is just 18 months
1 billion handsets per year
Only in January 2009 India got 15
million new mobile users
Much of this hardware is hidden from our view
Electronic equipment contains a big part of
the periodic table
Growing e-waste problem
We are buying enormous amounts of electronic devices + they are full with scarce and toxic materials + their life span is short = we got a problem!
8.7 million tons ewaste each year in the EU.
There is no data of what happen to 75% of it.
RoHSWEEE
Green our electronics
That’s an sculpture made of the amount of electric+electronic waste that one person generates in a lifetime
WEEE: EU directive that makes the producer responsible of the waste
RoHS: Ban of several toxic substances in electronics (as lead)
Green our electronics: Greenpeace campaign for increasing awareness of these problems
Most of carbon impact is in the use
phase: electricity
Numbers from apple. Not that true for Swedish scenario, but still a big part.
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A modern laptop consumes less than an
old light bulb
Surprising but true!Check the tool we made at http://carbon.to and you can play with several things like this.
The use-phase energy can be sustainable
Ericsson project: solar powered chargers
The network-side energy can be
sustainable
Cloud computingVirtualization
Back to dumb clients
Possible solutions for decreasing these problems
B.INDIRECT IMPACT
The environmental impact of the changes that ICT produces in the way we live brings. Positive and negative.
Dematerialization of knowledge
For instance in my e-reader I’ve got place for all the books I could possible read in my whole life
Virtual presence
Optimization Smart Grids
Computers can made everything much efficient. For instance the electrical grid: making appliances use power when lower demand and such things.
Optimization
But optimization works also for other things. ICT optimization is one of the reasons we have cheap flights now, equal lots of emissions...
The paperless office Technology sometimes hasn’t delivered what it promised. For instance the end of paper when computers were introduced in the office.
Telecommuting
Or reducing traveling by just communicating online, it has instead increased travelling
Rebound effects
Technology has usually unexpected
consequences in the real world, sometimes the
opposite of our predictionsRebound effects need to
be taken into account!
C. SOCIETAL IMPACT
ICT use as a tool for societal change and generator of sustainability.
ICT for DevelopmentAccess to knowledgeEmpowerment
See the video:http://www.ted.com/talks/
New forms of helpingHorizontal social
organization
Using web technologies for connecting people in need with people with means.
Giving voice to democracy
Making visible the invisible
Making the electricity consumption visible and help in reducing it.
Accounting sustainabilityChanging behavior
Accounting for carbon dioxide emissions is the first step for changing.In this case is travel CO2 thanks to www.dopplr.com
Many ICT applications try to change our behavior and increase our awareness. This one is we:offset by Nokia.
Using GPS it knows you have taken a plane to another country and encourage you to offset the emissions
1.1 T racking carbon footprint 1.1 T racking carbon footprint
People is forming communities and coming together on internet to try to solve things.
Bringing open source to the physical world
Open source and creative commons are great movements coming from the ICT world.
Check the vide:http://www.ted.com/talks/
ICT makes easier to behave in an environmental friendly way.
Check http://cykla.stockholm.se
My key pointis that computers have
changed our society in a deep way, and these
changes affects sustainability (the way society interacts with
nature) for good or for bad.
There are some technological patterns in
the previous opportunities
Key technologies to keep an eye in
Mobile phones
Single most used technology of history. More than 60% of the world population owns one and growing.
With convergence it would be the only device we need.
Pervasive SensorsGeo dataComputer control
Virtual knowledge
Virtual Presence
Social Media
The open movement
What will happen in the future?
Technology is developing at an accelerating pace.
Do we have the time to analyze its impact in society and in the environment?
Will the environment allow this continue development? Or will it say stop and change the course of technological development?
Conclusion
ICT is having more impact than we think in the pursuit of
sustainability, both positive than negative
These positive impacts can be empowered
ICT as any tool is what we make of it
That’s my point! ICTs are just tools! It is what WE made with them, will be design tools for increasing air travel? or applications to make the world better?
Contact at:
Jorge Zapico
[email protected]:// jorgezapico.com@zapico
Presentation at
http://slideshare.net/zapico
Thanks for watching!Send my questions / comments at those places in the right!
English / Swedish / Spanish / and easy Japanese are welcome =)