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The UK needs a new approach to low-carbon ICT

We need to invest in developing technology that can reduce emissions, rather than waste money on offsetting
uk ict
The UK needs to invest in technology that can reduce emissions. Photograph: Roger Ressmeyer/ Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS

The Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) has released the first results of a comparative study of low-carbon ICT leadership among national governments. The organisation has produced a top-10 ranking by country, but the UK is nowhere to be seen.

The Low-Carbon ICT Leadership Benchmark has been produced to help governments integrate low-carbon ICT solutions into their climate change agenda. It's based on information supplied to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), setting out how countries are complying with the carbon reduction commitments they agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol.

Japan is way out in front in the rankings. Denmark and Germany are in joint second place, followed by Ireland and the EU as a whole. The other countries in the top 10 are the Netherlands, Australia, Finland, Romania and India.

GeSI, the organisation that carried out the research, is made up of a group of ICT companies and other organisations that are promoting technologies and practices that foster sustainability. The organisation was behind the Smart 2020 report, which concluded that ICT could deliver carbon savings five times larger than the total emissions from ICT itself by 2020.

Luis Neves, Chairman of GeSI, said that: "By highlighting low-carbon ICT leadership amongst governments, GeSI seeks to encourage a race to the top in the run-up to COP17 (the next round of UN climate change talks later this year) so that ICT is included in strategies as a key enabler in tackling climate change and creating sustainable business models and growth opportunities."

So why isn't the UK in the low-carbon ICT rankings? Well, the intention seems good. The government has promised its own detailed green ICT strategy in the next four or five months. Meanwhile, an interim document maintains that "[The government's] approach not only considers the carbon cost of ICT itself, it also addresses the use of ICT to reduce the overall carbon emissions in delivering government services". But it also confirms the target put in place by the previous administration to make government ICT carbon neutral by 2012.

It's always been a bit of a mystery how you can use IT to reduce the emissions generated by government as a whole while at the same time cutting the government's ICT emissions to zero. The answer lies in the Department for Energy and Climate Change's definition of carbon neutrality, which boils down to the use of offsets. Carbon offsetting is the process of buying credits from emissions reductions projects to make up for the carbon cutbacks an organisation is unable or unwilling to make itself.

It's clear that the only way to reach carbon neutrality in government ICT operations is through the purchase of offsets. But using the ICT budget to buy them means there will be less money to invest in technology. And since ICT can potentially save a lot more emissions than it creates, the net result is a failure to achieve potential emissions savings across government operations.

If the government really wants to reduce its overall carbon emissions, then the promise of carbon neutrality in ICT is just going to slow the process. The most effective strategy would be to use ICT budgets to make government more efficient, rather than to buy offsets. That's the only way the government is ever going to make the GeSI's top 10 rankings of low-carbon ICT leadership.

Pete Foster is a writer, researcher and consultant on sustainable ICT


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