Review of the Rzilient x Keewe webinar

Digital devices and objects have an increasingly important place in our daily lives. Their consumption increases every year, and so does the production of waste electrical and electronic equipment(60 million tons of WEEE produced annually).

It is therefore not surprising that digital technology has become a major environmental issue, and that the question of its impact and the future of the sector is being raised.

On January 20, during the webinar "What if the management of our digital equipment was more eco-responsible?", our CSR manager, Audren Letellier, and Alexandre Torbay, co-founder of Keewe - a financial services platform that facilitates the ecological transition of its users - asked themselves the question of the place of digital technology in environmental issues. After setting the scene for the current climate emergency (marked by increasing climate disruption), they shared key figures on the impact of digital technology, and discussed in more detail the issue of terminals and what can be done to reduce their impact.

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The context of the climate emergency

On August 9, 2021, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) released theAR6 Climate Change 2021the first part of its sixth report on climate assessment. Its conclusions are unambiguous: climate disruption is the consequence of human activities, which have warmed the atmosphere, cryosphere, oceans and land, and caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

This increase has been occurring for 150 years: +1.1°C is the increase in average global surface temperature between 1850 and 2020, and +0.8/0.9 for the oceans.

The consequences of this disruption are already being felt, with an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events that threaten lifestyles and territories :

• Heat waves
• Heavy rainfall
• Droughts
• Conditions conducive to fire
• Average sea level rise (+9 cm between 1993 and 2019)
• Ocean acidification

A few weeks after the publication of this report, the COP26 opened in Glasgow and saw the reiteration of the international commitments already made at the COP21: to stay below +1.5°C/2.0°C, and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

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Impact of digital technology: orders of magnitude

The weight of digital technology in GHG emissions

So what does digital technology have to do with it? Is its environmental impact significant?

This is the least we can say: the sector represents between 3.5 and 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), is currently growing at around 6% per year (a figure that is likely to increase further with the development of the sector, and seems hardly compatible with a 2°C trajectory), and is also exerting growing pressure on natural resources (with the extraction of materials for the manufacture of equipment).

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The causes of this exponential growth

There are several reasons for the rise in this not-so-dematerialized impact:

• The surge (+26%/year) in the amount of data exchanged (data), for example, watching videos online (nearly 60% of digital uses) generated more than 300 million tons of C02 in 2018 - as much greenhouse gas as Spain, or nearly 1% of global emissions.
• The increase in the number of connected terminals: Internet of things (Iot) corresponds to any object or "thing" connected to an Internet network that can communicate with each other by exchanging data. This market has experienced strong growth in France and worldwide, partly due to the coronavirus pandemic (travel restrictions, obligation to work remotely...).
• The rise in the number of people with connected devices: the number of people using smartphones accounted for 6.4 billion or 79% of all mobile connections worldwide in July 2021. This represents a 68% increase in average monthly mobile data traffic worldwide in one year.
• The development of new networks to provide these new services, such as fiber networks and mobile networks 4G, 5G, which allow to transfer more and more data faster and faster, and therefore results in an increase in the number of data exchanged, the loop is closed.

The increase in the use of digital devices leads to an increase in their energy consumption, and therefore an increase in GHG emissions.

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The case of terminals

The breakdown of the sector's GHG emissions does not necessarily correspond to the conventional wisdom: terminals weigh the most heavily in the balance (64%), more than data storage, data centers (20%), and networks (16%).

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State of the art

The impacts come primarily from user equipment, and the rise in the digital footprint is driven by a number of upward trends, in the workplace in particular:

• The number of new equipment units placed on the market: 371 million units in 2019, a 50% increase over 2018,
• De facto, the increase in production results in an increase in the number of WEEE,
• The equipment rate: 2.5 devices per user in France, which represents 44 to 70% of the digital impact per user and can be explained by the increasingly frequent use of the second screen.

At the same time, the renewal rate is falling: in 30 years, the useful life of a device has gone from 11 to 4 years. These curves are causing unprecedented pressure on non-renewable resources, and threaten to create shortages. According to Frédérique Bordage, a French specialist in responsible digital technology: "Digital technology will be an exhausted resource in 30 years".

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Refurbished as a solution to reduce your digital footprint

Manufacturing a new device has more impact than using it. For terminals, the part linked to manufacturing represents 45% of the impact of a device (hence the importance of considering the extension of its life span) and 19% is linked to its use.

Choosing refurbished products (accompanied by a sustainable IT policy!) has many advantages, environmental, social and ethical, economic, and even legal: the regulatory framework is increasingly strict (AGEC law February 2020, REEN law November 2021) to push companies to adopt more responsible models.

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Use case with Sarah, Office Manager of GarantMe

GarantMe is an exponentially growing Insuretech company that offers a guarantee solution for tenants who do not have guarantors. Rzilient supported GarantMe in a simpler and more sustainable fleet management, to lighten their digital footprint.

We have always worked with refurbished equipment. The problem is that with this type of growth, it becomes more and more complicated to manage the needs in terms of equipment when we have 5 to 10 arrivals per month, and to manage breakdowns, breakages, water glasses on the keyboard... [...] We contacted Rzilient to obtain better management of our fleet in terms of acquisition and daily management. [...] We got in touch with Rzilient to get a better management of our fleet in terms of acquisition and daily management. It went very well [...] Rzilient was able to adapt to our growth and our growing needs! We have a dedicated team that is extremely responsive and relevant, and we are particularly satisfied with Rzilient's proposal.
Sarah

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Conclusion

If we want to limit the negative consequences on our lifestyles, we must reduce our GHG emissions and aim for carbon neutrality by 2050 (or even before).

As for the digital sector, which is growing rapidly (+6%) and already accounts for 4% of GHG emissions, the trend must be towards rational use in order to control its environmental impact (water, abiotic resources, energy consumption, GHG).

Solutions include extending the lifespan of terminals (repair, reconditioning), whose production is the primary source of GHG emissions for the digital sector, or giving preference to reconditioned equipment, to give it a second life!

Want to discuss your company's environmental footprint and adopt a more responsible iT policy? Let's discuss your project together.

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Sources:

• Environmental impact of digital: 5-year trends and 5G governance, The Shift Project, 2021
• Climate: the unsustainable use of online video, The Shift Project , 2019
• IPCC 6th Assessment Report, Group 1 report on the scientific and physical basis of climate change, IPCC, 2021
• What is the carbon footprint of streaming? EDF, 2021
• Les chiffres clés du climat 2022, French Government, 2021
• ARCEP, Report "Pour un numérique soutenable", 2020