The environmental footprint of the Information Technology (IT) sector is an increasingly pressing issue as the world becomes more and more dependent on digital technology. Whether it’s through data centers, smartphones, laptops, or other devices, our digital infrastructure has a significant impact. A significant share of the emissions associated with these technologies remain unmonetized. A new study highlights how today’s measurement practices are failing to capture 70 percent of the total environmental burden. This gap has led to increasingly loud calls for rethinking how the industry measures sustainability.
Data center operations usually take up most of the breath when talking about IT emissions. They account for just 24 percent of the overall carbon footprint. An even more disturbing yet unsurprising disclosure has surfaced. Embodied emissions from devices such as smartphones and laptops account for 45 percent of total IT emissions. A large portion of the environmental impact is due to the manufacturing of devices themselves. It’s not only how they work that matters, but how they were created that makes a big difference.
The Hidden Emissions From IT Devices
Embodied carbon is the sum of all greenhouse gas emissions associated with the manufacturing of a piece of equipment. It takes into account emissions from its eventual disposal. It takes about 50 kg of CO2e to manufacture one smartphone. In comparison, the environmental cost of making a laptop is five times higher as it generates an estimated 200 kilograms of CO2e. This major difference underscores the life cycle emissions from devices that are too often excluded in conversations around sustainability.
This is a huge oversight, since manufacturing makes up a major portion of device emissions—75 percent in this particular life cycle stage. And extending the lifecycle of smartphones from two years to three would more than halve annual manufacturing emissions. This one shift would de-increase emissions by as much as 33 percent! Such a strategy has the potential to greatly reduce the total emissions from these devices.
In fact, end-user devices produce 1.5 to 2 times the carbon produced by all data centers combined. This sobering truth underscores the necessity for an expanded view on IT sustainability. Even today, policies continue to focus narrowly on the operations of data centers while overlooking the massive emissions in producing and disposing devices connecting to the internet.
The Emissions Landscape of Data Centers
It’s usually data center operations that take center stage in narratives surrounding emissions from IT. The reality is they play a much smaller role in the overall environmental picture. Data center embodied carbon accounts for 16 percent of overall IT emissions. By contrast, device operation contributes only 15 percent to this total. These numbers aren’t just a big win for transportation equity. Data centers certainly contribute to emissions, but they’re not the boogeyman as some people want to think.
Just read our recent blog, Home run, going beyond the baseball diamond. By 2028, data centers will be projected to use anywhere from 6.7 to 12 percent of all electricity used in the U.S. This expected expansion increases the pressure on their sustainability and the demand for greater efficiency in operations within these facilities. Here’s the bottom line—it’s not enough to just be better with data centers. We need to do more than just focus on the direct emissions from IT.
The Role of Regulatory Frameworks
The introduction of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) has required about 11,700 companies to report their emissions. But the frameworks that these models are based on aren’t fully developed, risking underreporting of how much emissions are actually going up. This regulatory gap underscores the need for better methodologies to measure and report sustainability metrics across the entire IT industry.
To truly measure and minimize the environmental impact of IT, stakeholders must look beyond the established metrics. To accomplish this, they need to take a wider view than just data center operations. By incorporating more holistic assessments, companies can enact smarter, more efficient strategies to reduce their carbon footprint. These assessments should include emissions from device manufacturing through their lifecycles.