Can digitalisation and sustainability go hand in hand?
One could think that digitalisation can help to save resources, such as paper. But what about resources that have to be used when working with technology? The processed data are not truly tangible, which is why the high energy requirement is often underestimated.
For example, one Google query requires about 0.3 watt-hours, twenty of them could power an energy-saving lamp for 60 minutes. One single search query in the new hype tool ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence, consumes ten times the computing power of Google.
This energy doesn’t come from just anywhere. It also must be obtained, and if you’re paying attention you will realise that surfing the Internet is far from the only thing that consumes enormous amounts of energy. Streaming services, the use of practical apps or saving content in a cloud – these have all become an integral part of our daily lives and as technologies continue to develop rapidly, the data quantities to be processed are more likely to grow than to shrink.
But these technologies also lead to opportunities for global cooperation, which is essential for climate protection. So how can we counteract this high energy consumption?
If you cannot do anything about the consumption itself, you must change the manner of consumption. Let’s start at the beginning with the energy production. If only renewable energies were to be used to operate Google and similar companies, digitalisation and sustainability could even go hand in hand as the cooperation between all states required for climate protection only becomes possible through digitalisation.
