LeCake Train – Chapter 2
Our increasingly digital lives come with a cost.
In this session we analyse the impact of digital technology and data in cultural sector for the environment.
Part 1
Presented by Sylvain Baudoin, The Shift Project
and Héloïse Lesimple , The Shift Project
Editing:
Kevin Nivard
Music:
Leo Sokolovsky
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LeCake is a European cultural innovation project which is part of the ecological transition.
It involves 8 partners from 6 European countries.
LeCake has 2 components :
LeCake Train (research, design, knowledge sharing, training, publications)
LeCake Lab (creation of sustainable European art projects)
LeCAKE Train is Funded by Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership and Label Paris Europe
La Transplanisphere — France, Paris latransplanisphere.com (coordinator)
Ex-Quorum — Portugal, Evora facebook.com/exquorum/
Teatro Rigodon — Italy, Rieti teatrorigodon.it
La métonymie / Le sas – France, Paris Le sas, groupe science-art-société
The Shift Project – France, Paris theshiftproject.org
Ohi Pezoume / Urban Dig project – Greece, Athens urbandigproject.org
Pro Progressione – Hungary, Budapest proprogressione.com
forum kunstvereint e.V. / Consol Theatre – Germany, Gelsenkirchen consoltheater.de
T he environmental impact of the digital Technologies um so um just a topic about words uh I will certainly speak about ICT to refer to the digital Technologies ICT means information and communication Technologies so this is a kind of bigger word to mention
Everything that relates to digital Technologies we mainly use this word in the professional World Enterprise world uh but it’s it’s just the same the digital is for everybody icts when we deal with professional working in the ICT sector in the digital sector so it’s just the same word
Yeah that’s right so let me first introduce myself to you I’m Sylvain Baudoin I’m working for The Shift Project I’m part of the experts of the ICT and I’m a writer of a report that we
Released in 2020 which was called Expanding digital sufficiency so that’s why I’m here today to explain you what we consider at the chief project what are the main issues with the digital world and giving you some I’m sorry but there are some things Bing on the screen
Is it okay with the screen okay thanks so and so and giving you some clues about what we can do uh with digital and what how we can tackle the digital sovety in in the culture environment so first when we talk about digital ICT we first consider usage
Because digital is everywhere whatever you can consider you will find some any digital device if you want to do some shopping if you want to communicate with your family
With your neighbors if you want to shop if you want to don’t know to learn everything if you want to play if you want to watch movies, everything relates to digital devices so the first contact we have with the digital word is via usages
The problem with digital usage is that we need devices to play with so worldwide we consider we have something like 34 billion devices and the problem is the trend uh the trend is
That we expect to have something like um see 45 billion devices by the end of this decade we’ll see later on some figures but this is mainly what we consider being as being the the most important problem with digital world is the trends that are behind so in this
Presentation we’ll see briefly what are the main uh mechanism behind this this Trends and why we have problem with these trends when we have devices we also have internet connections uh when we use uh digital devices uh we mainly use internet behind um if you consider having
Only digital devices without internet uh you have a problem because you will see that you can’t do anything you can’t play if you have if you don’t have any connection most of the games you have you play with uh you can’t play with them if you don’t have internet connections if
You want to watch movies you have to you need to have a internet connection so um the same Trend we have on devices we have it on internet connection so on this picture we can see that the trend about internet connections is uh is an exponential curve uh which let us say that
We have a problem with that we also have a problem with energy uh if you want to use devices whatever the device is you need to have energy uh what is important to know is that energy occurs not only
When you use the device this is the electricity you have to to use to charge your device with but you have energy Al also on the production phase um when you have a device in your hand um the device was obviously uh produced somewhere in the world and this production required some
Energy uh what this picture says is that um roughly the Prime with energy is um half due to production half due to uh the usage phase um so it’s not only a matter of use when you deal
With energy it’s also a matter of producing the device so um you certainly have heard about the the best practice that is to extend the lifespan of any device this is one of the reason if you extend the lifespan device uh you require less energy overall uh to produce all the the digital
Devices so I mention Trends uh here you have uh different Trends um about uh digital what matters most is what’s on on the left on the screen um it’s about uh data data is everywhere and data
Is expected to to grow to grow at dramatic Pace uh which would gives additional pressure to what we need as networks and what we call also data centers I didn’t mention data centers yet data centers are kind of big buildings uh where you store um and produce all the digital um
Services uh the more data you have the more data you exchange while you use uh internet the more uh data centers you need so the overall trend is quite dramatic uh so because this means more and more data centers so you need more to produce more and more devices you need to
Produce more and more buildings so uh in a limited world uh this is not um a trend that is going to um we can we can go with it without any problem so now dealing with the
Impacts uh I just me mention Trends what is behind uh ICT uh now we are we are going to deal with the environmental impacts uh the first impact uh I might mention energy but if you look
At energy you you are shortly going to look at uh the carbon dioxide emissions uh so the first Trend um we try to assess at the shift project is the the emissions of carbon dioxide so we assess that today um the global volume of carbon Dio emissions related to ICT is roughly
3 to 4% of the world the the world the global uh World emissions uh just to give a reference point France emissions the overall territorial emissions of France is about 1% so when we deal with uh digital worldwide you are considering uh something something that is bigger uh than
France uh so this is not something we can uh um quickly um work with we have a real issue with uh digital and if you look at the curves uh the trend is not very uh uh how would say satisfying
I would say um because in the very short term we are going to have um emissions related to digital that will exceed what we have today with maybe agriculture or maybe uh individual Mobility now if you look deeper what’s behind um uh the way we produce we have impacts uh Mater environmental
Impacts with digital is looking at the complete life cycle of what a device is so this this cycle relates to any kind of of device it could be maybe a Furniture whatever um what is important here is
That you for every picture every um single thing you have on this curve you have emissions you have impacts on the environment for instance on the production phase we have we’ll see later on we have impacts about mining we have impacts about water usage uh whatever you think um on this curve
We also have um kind of feedback loop related to recycling so let’s explain quickly what we have with uh with this like and what it’s a problem uh we may consider that recycling is something that
Is very good and it is indeed but uh we may have this image in mind that uh it is sufficient it is actually not sufficient for different reasons uh one of them is that in your internet or digital
Device you have very tiny portions of materials that is very are very difficult to extract and put back in the cycle of production so uh most a big part of your uh digital device cannot be actually
Be recycled so this is an issue and if you look uh worldwide uh only around 177% of any E-Waste so ew is um a waste coming from electronic electronic waste only 17% of ew are actually properly collected and recycled worldwide so this means that uh the vast majority of uh ew are just
Gone somewhere in the nature we don’t know where it is um so this is a big issue because we cannot properly um control this feedback loops that could come from recycling so um another second reason why um expanding the lifespan of any device is important is that because the longer we keep
The device uh the less uh additional uh lost weights we have on on this feedback feedback loop if we take some examples about devices we can see something that um on on the first s uh the impact of an individual device is is quite limited but it’s see here it’s a matter
Of kilograms of CO2 so if you compare what are emitted on the production phase for the device if you compare it with the weight of the device you can see that there is an important factor uh for instance if you look at the what is called um console portable so it’s a game
Device handheld game device so this weight is something like two or 300 grams and still this is a small device but it emitted a lot on the production phase so roughly 100 time more than its weight um so the bigger device is if you look at it the bigger the the emissions will
Be um if we look more deeply uh about screens screens are important in the culture environment because uh when you deal with movies you deal with screens um so the bigger the screen is the bigger the impact are um there is a kind of direct relation between the the size of the
Screen and and the emissions so uh you have on on top left top right corner sorry the emissions related to the size of the screen at the bottom left you have the trend we have in the number
Of devices on TV sets in the world um shortly we’ll be around um 1 billion TV sets in use worldwide if we take another example we have um a stereo Sun System um we can see that the bigger impact come from the the bigger part of the CO2 emissions
Come from the raw materials this is the blue part of the circle at the bottom uh mining mining is a real concern and we’ll see that later on uh when dealing with um digital devices we mentioned internet uh internet is not something that is that is vaporous that RS to
Cloud uh internet if you want to use internet worldwide you need to use um thousands and thousands of kilometers of cables and the cables are spread uh worldwide mainly uh in the oceans
So on this map you can see uh any kind of the the circles at the connection points uh and you have all the cables that connect the continents and the countries all together so if you consider
Um I don’t know the connection between Europe and the United States it’s not a matter of just one cable this is tens of cables um so this means tons and tons of raw materials to produce uh these
Cables production this is a factory uh production ICT is really uh concrete it’s made of uh real materials when we deal with clouds we consider that um a digital service is vaporous but it’s not uh a digital service is powered with big computers and you build big computers thanks to
Um materials raw materials you find in the earth uh we have problem with copper because copper is widely used in digital devices but it is also widely used in uh electricity Transportation it is widely used when you deal with um producing uh green electricity so copper you get copper in the
Earth and you have a problem with copper because you have um concurrent usage of copper between the digital world and the green electricity you want to to have in the future so somehow we may have to decide uh what is best to use copper to produce electricity or use copper to play games
With we will show you a quick video uh from CNN about Mining and what are rare elements that are in all the electronic devices that we use so let’s watch a five minutes video all welcome to hey hello the video is really quality on our hand
Um would it be possible that you send us the link and maybe watch it on our yeah you can’t you don’t see you don’t hear you don’t hear it well no we don’t hear it and it’s okay I will send you the link [Music] [Music] spee fore up
Up Normally you have all the link so uh let’s watch the video for five minutes and then go back to the to to the presentation is it okay for everyone okay thank you you e three spee okay did everyone watch the video is it okay well okay so let’s okay so
Um in this video you understood that uh we have an issue with uh re elements um it mentioned what I just said before about weights we have an issue when dealing with recycling the the ews um overall overall if you consider the complete um impacts and ecological impacts of um an electronic device
Uh you end up with the concept of ecological backpack um in an ecological backpack you you put everything that you add to to extract and use extract from the environment and use to create the given device so if you want for for the example here is the a laptop which weighs
Roughly 2 kilograms quite a big laptop but in 2 kilogram laptop you actually needed uh 800 kilogram of resources to create this laptop so you have a ratio of about 400 between the weight of the the involved resources and the weight of the the laptop the final device I mentioned just
Before a ratio of maybe 10 or 100 related to emissions of carbon dioxide here the the the ratio is about everything um in these two in this 800 kilogram resources you we did account the the waste water we used hundreds and hundreds of liters of water uh and it’s just waste because
It’s full of um toxic products so the water at the end of the production process is not usable at all okay um now leading with uh dealing with uh usage uh what matters first when you look at the internet traffic is videos uh it’s important to
Mention videos here because uh video is in the scope of culture so most of the content um we that go through the internet is video so it’s online video so other video is something like just the zoom we are doing now um maybe uh some other uh activities just like sharing your
Screen stuff like that but if you look only at uh what is accountable directly to produced um content which mention online video uh accounts for 60% between 60 and 70% of the internet uh um now Trends mention More than 70% related to uh to videos uh specifically speaking with uh
Mobile devices uh we mostly use uh internet on our mobile devices to watch videos uh on mobile devices uh videos accounts for 80% of the usage of Internet so um it’s a big concern videos is a big concern uh when dealing with uh the usage of the internet as we mentioned
Earlier the internet is um works thanks to the all the cables we have on worldwide so uh the more video we add and the more video we demand on the internet the more cables we we will need overall if you may compare uh the impacts and the carbon dioxide emissions
Related to videos worldwide you end up with a figures that makes um video comparable to what has been emitted by Spain uh during in in 18 in 2018 so again if you remember um the complete digital world is accountable for maybe 4% of the carbon the exed worldwide
Uh only the video is 80% 60 or 80% of this this is this is comparable to uh to Spain okay so under the video Yet so just to summarize what Silvan just presented you the shift made a quick video uh just to to explain uh to to to summarize all this so let’s it’s like a two minutes let’s just watch it and then go back
Okay so we are really happy that we all uh emit CO2 while watching this video uh let’s go back to [Music] uh Sorry okay so now what about uh digital and [Music] culture okay so s is going to continue with the the link between culture and video okay so we we mentioned that already um we have a big issue with uh with video traffic [Music] um it’s
It’s somewhat counterintuitive but watching video has a real impact and is is a source of emissions of carbon dioxide um so we just said that um so specifically speaking with uh video um I just mentioned the importance of the size of the screen um but you also have a problem with the
Size of the screen and the size of the format because uh you may know that we have different video formats this is mainly now 4K uh 8K is is coming um this relates to the size of the say the
File that stores the the movie um and is um it relates to the number of pixels the size of the image of the movie so from 4K to 8K you multiply by four the size of the data that makes the that
Makes the movie um so we want 8K uh format because we have large screens now um we would have smaller screens eight8 K wouldn’t make sense at all um if we want bigger screens um producers will create
Bigger screens but also this we we also say to the movie producers that we want uh movies that fit into our 8K television so we want actually um movie Producers to create um 8K movies so if
You have8 K movies we will need a bigger internet connection um so uh Network providers will have to enlarge their Network and they will maybe need to extend um their network but if we also have as
An end user larger networks it will be easier for us to watch 8K movies so if we it’s easier to watch 8K movies we want bigger screens because we also we all want to have uh to watch uh movies
Of of better quality and it’s kind of uh vicious cycle and this leads to what we call a rebound effect what is important is to understand that um the growing the the growth the trend we have with the digital world uh comes from a kind of feedback loop positive feedback loop between
The users and the producers um if it’s easier for us as a consumer to consume things we will require uh things that fit into this uh easier world and producers will produce bigger things that we will then be happy to to consume so it’s kind of a vicious cycle that lead
Us to uh the trans we show at the beginning of the presentation um theoretically at at the beginning the re rebound effects were dealing with energy uh meaning that if a process requires less energy to to produce the process using the process will be cheaper so we it will be easier
For people to consume the process Etc so at the end we will have more people consuming the process the new process uh which requires less energy than the initial process uh which required more energy uh so in the end if we put everything in addition we will in the
End consume more more energy than we consumed it before when the process was less efficient uh this is what we call um the Jon Paradox or the rebound effect and this what this is what behind the feedback loop we are still seeing your YouTube screen so if you can can
Switch thank you uh so we share again the screen is it okay okay perfect okay thank you very much sorry about that Um okay do you want me to um to explain things again or is it okay for you okay so I continue it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay okay so here we have a picture depicting the
The the positive feedback group I just explained in France we had this with the 5G the the network 5G um this is a picture from a report we wrote about 5G um but it’s almost the same I mean in
Five in in France 5G was first uh deployed because the 4G network 4G network was almost saturated so um it’s it’s not at the beginning 5G is not intended to to give additional usage um for Mobility it’s a matter of giving a fresh air to network that was almost saturated but the
Problem is 5G if you do so uh you just take part of the Vicious Cycle so you continue giving uh more power easiness for users to to consume digital content so what you what you just do
Is just keep on um this this vicious cycle that lead to uh that lead to um to dramatic trends for digital us usages [Music] um okay so um just to summarize you have to [Music] uh two two two
Possibilities to um to have rebound effect uh when you deal with uh digital especially uh in the culture sector um the more uh support your more um diffusion modes you have uh the more you will uh push users to consume content digital content so uh you have a first rebound effect
Um the other uh rebound effect we can see is the increased goge uh the goge is the the how many people is going to a festival is going to watch a movie in the cinema room stuff like that uh if you
Put uh access if you give access to the content uh to users uh via um uh Digital Services um the more people will consume your your service uh aside what already exist what you have to understand
Especially in the culture world uh digital is not uh the support the it’s not support at all about soety and it’s not a matter of um keeping usage under control um digital first mean more
Thing uh let’s have some examples if you look at what happened in France um in cinema um if you compare uh the the the audience the attendance in the cinema rooms in France in the beginning
Of 2023 uh you end up with an attendance that is almost what it was just before the covid crisis but at the same time uh people just watch more and more movies um via Netflix or Amazon and
Stuff like that so what it just means is that uh streaming video streaming didn’t uh move off people from the cinema rooms it just give some more video content to users to people so people just kept on going to cinema rooms but they also uh consume more videos via uh digital
[Music] platforms if you just ask yourself a question uh we are we we may spoke about metaverse these days uh metaverse was first uh showed as a great place to um to watch uh
To to to see online concert but you ask just ask yourself uh if you watch a live concert on on the metaverse will you still go to live concerts in rooms or festivals there are certainly no
Reason for you to say oh I just watch my my favorite star on on the on the live uh event on on on the metaverse so I won’t see it see her see him um in live in concert so you will
Certainly again do the thing twice you will watch the the show first on the metaverse and then you will you will find it very good and you will be um pushed to go in the concert room to to watch him
Again so uh um the idea is so what can we do now that we understand that digital as a an nonmental impact what can we do in order to reduce uh its impact first of all is to uh to measure
To measure stuff to know what is the impact of a smartphone what is the impact of a computer what is the impact of uh our use of uh data of videos Etc so first is measure like we say
Then there is some good practices that you can put in use uh easily first you always prefer to buy reconditioned product and secondhand products whereas uh new ones uh you can find uh smartphone on Black Market I think there are maybe some local uh local distributor also in in your countries in
France you have for for instance SM art where you can buy uh smartphones and iPads and uh black um and uh computers on it then try always to repair um in our society today it’s uh not so easy to to
Have this um this way of doing because we are used to to be pushed into throwing and buying again so the repairing is not uh so so intuitive for instance almost no one know how to repair it
Its own cell phone usually you throw it away and you buy it a new one and sometimes it’s it’s not so so much expensive but repairing will expand the lifespan of your equipment and this is how
You reduce its CO2 impact as um we saw all about the mining and the production of uh of it uh in culture there is also all this circular economy that is developed and that needs to be pushed
Uh it can it can be about stenography but you can also think circular economy with all the digital um equipment and digital stuff that you use computers uh uh video projectors etc etc so um it’s depent to think economy of use whereas of economy of waste so economy of use is first
To share your equipment share with all your colleagues um uh the people you work with uh to to share the equipment between companies between theater between uh a local region sharing then repairing as as we just saw then we sell or donate uh some stuff are sometimes
Still in use but because we need a different format because we we need um a different Sho sometimes we just throw it away but it’s still in use for mention for video Proctor sometimes the format uh is not link with your computer Etc but some Association can um have it and
Resell it for you so try to find maybe local um uh resellers then can can use all these E Equipment then recondition also you can donate and maybe it will be repaired and weell so and uh be
Instead of wasting at the end of the cycle prefer to try to find where you can recycle all the E Equipment um you can also reduce your impact by uh thinking about the format for instance
Um for videos you can uh be careful when you upload it on the cloud or on your drive or or on the Internet uh try to uh upload a video that is not too heavy because the the the more
The heavier it is uh the more it consume data and the more it emits uh CO2 then think about uh throwing away what is unused like um you know about the the emails or all the stuff
That we keep on our cloud and that uh we don’t need it need them anymore so try to throw it away to to to suppress it because if it’s still uh on a data storage it will continue to be um
Emitting uh CO2 and uh be a problem for climate change so as you can see compressed what can be compressed when you send an email um maybe with a PDF you can uh compress it and also
Uh you can send link more than attachment or or player instead of a video uh attached but be careful because um don’t put your video in several networks because it will also use data storage so choose one network put it online and then use this link to um share your your video
Content then uh the question is um like you so uh one of the important dynamics that we have in decarbonizing the culture report is renouncement so maybe before uh going into a project you can
Question its New Uses uh like nfts uh in um the visual art field or maybe a show through virtual reality we can question really the important of it in your creation before choosing to do it and if you choose to do it to really have a strong reflection on uh all its life
Cycle so uh one of the key uh messages of this present presentation on environmental impact of digital and that digital is has an impact first it’s not a cloud it’s uh it has a physical uh print so you have to keep it in mind then try to always think about the
Equipment that is linked to the digital consumption because the equipment is um accountable for half of the environmental impact of the digital use then uh think about the afterlife about reusing recycling uh buying reconditioning equipment and think
That the all this technology is also dependent on fossil fuels that are as with so before uh not Eternal so uh think also about the rebound effect that you will have when you use uh new
Technology when you promote new use of digital uh what are going to be the after effect of it so think Global maybe is can be the conclusion of this presentation uh thanks Silva thanks all for
Listening we can have maybe a uh what time is it um a five minute breaks then we’ll go back and have a a quick session of exchange and if you want to have maybe um some enlightening
On this presentation of talk about how you use digital uh in your practices it will be [Music] great