Personal footprint[edit | edit source]
Workspace
- Estimate your footprint using a calculator:
- Use the secondary tab to estimate the footprint of your office equipment (laptops, electronics, clothes, paper-based products).
- Use the house tab to estimate your energy usage during work hours. If you live alone, you can consider measuring your energy usage with your home meter or using another tool.
Travel
- Estimate your footprint using a calculator:
- Use the car tab and estimate your footprint by considering how much you use your car for work: commuting to the office, visiting clients, or in-person meetings.
- Use the flights tab to estimate your usual flights for work and professional conferences.
Online behavior
- For your browser activity, you can use The Shift Project's excellent Carbonanalyser browser extension.
- Do you use a cryptocurrency wallet as part of your work? You can calculate its carbon footprint using carbon.fyi.
- If you use Zoom for videoconferencing, estimate your emissions with this neat tool.[1]
Subsystems[edit | edit source]
Energy
- Does the organization use renewable energy sources to power its business infrastructure (offices, stores, etc.)?
- Do the organization's web servers use green hosting? You can check using the Green Web Check service.
- Is the hardware given to users (e.g. Internet of Things devices) powered with solar energy or other renewable sources? Examples of this are the inclusion of solar panels for sensors, wireless systems or phone accessories.
Digital equipment
- Does the organization have a hardware development team that works on electronic devices or hires hardware developers to produce and sell digital equipment as part of its business model?
- Does the organization reuse open hardware designs?
- Does the organization's business model include transportation logistics for electronics, such as buying and transporting digital equipment and accessories for sale, including devices, batteries, cables, adapters, etc.?
- Does the organization have a backward compatibility policy to extend the life of electronic devices?
Non-digital equipment
- Does the organization invest in buildings for stores and offices?
- Do products require packaging for sales and transportation?
- Are there accessories for digital devices being sold, such as straps, adapters or protective cases?
- Are printed materials such as user manuals or books included in the product or service?
- Does the organization invest in promotional materials as part of its business model?
Automation and management
- Is most of the software development for the organization's products done in-house?
- Does the organization hire on-demand workers from services like Amazon Mechanical Turk or Upwork for most of its development?
- Does the organization reuse open source software?
- Is regular travel part of the organization's requirements for digital development workers?
- Does the business model rely on obtaining, storing, analyzing or delivering large amounts of data to its users?
Network infrastructure
- Does the organization focus on installing wired or wireless network connectivity as part of its business model?
- Do the business activities require dedicated cloud services for its operation?
- Does the organization serve areas with low network connectivity in a way that it requires extra infrastructure?
- Are there local data transfer limitations for the type of data your organization requires?
Digital dynamics[edit | edit source]
Direct costs
- Will costs associated with implementing this digital technology will pay off in the long term to investors, and users?
- Will the benefits of this technology spread out to society or only a few?
- Are there any hidden costs that vulnerable populations will end up paying, for example, through an increase in costs of other services?
- Does the digital product or service substitute a more costly solution currently in place?
Social and health effects
- Does using a digital system replace the carbon footprint of other systems (e.g. paper-based materials, travel, etc.) in a way that can improve the quality of life of individuals?
- Does a digital system help reduce economic or social inequalities for vulnerable communities?
- Does a digital system improve the well-being of individuals or communities?
- Are there negative impacts on health associated with the use of a digital system?
Feedbacks
- Does the system encourage people to spend more time in it than previous alternatives?
- Does using the system lead to an increase in manufacturing or the production of goods?
- Do individual users produce data that is never used again, for example, photos?
- Is the system redundant of a previous alternative or does it completely substitute it?
Cybersecurity
- Is the service provided considered critical? This means that lives or basic services depend on it.
- Does the system require extra cybersecurity measures?
- Is the information managed by the system sensitive to hacks?
Global/local impacts[edit | edit source]
Find the impacts near you
- Research about data centers close to you and any online news about their impact in local communities.
- Review news articles about resource extraction and environmental damage in your country. This is an example of what is happening in El Salvador.
- Check data resources regarding energy transition mining, for example this map at the Environmental Justice Atlas website that shows the impact of strategic minerals and metals used for the energy transition, or this dataset by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre with human rights risks assessments associated with mining around the world.
Where does your organization create impact?
- Where does your organization have a physical presence? See for example Google's datacenter locations.
- Check if the organization has any environmental policies regarding its use of water, environmental conservation, use of land, impacts on communities including low-income communities, and the commitment to reducing social vulnerability. An example of this is Microsoft's environmental policies. Does your organization follow a similar approach?
- Also consider any policies regarding these actions in regards to contractors to ensure that no responsibilities for negative effects are being delegated to other stakeholders overseas.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Mytton, D. (2020, November 16). Zoom, video conferencing, energy, and emissions. David Mytton. https://davidmytton.blog/zoom-video-conferencing-energy-and-emissions/
