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Technology

Our lives are now enmeshed with communication technologies - and these all use power and resources - often, quite a lot of it. From mobile phones, to televisions, computers, laptops, tablets and wifi. Making these items, which are replaced every few years, takes energy and non-renewable resources. Here's a short film on the industry's environmental impact ...

A vast amount of energy is used by huge data centres (aka the cloud, which stores our messages, photos files, software, and web activity), our searches, when our computers are turned on, by wifi, and every time we search google, send a text or an email, or call someone. More data centres are being built. but they use huge amounts of power and get very hot in the process and then vast amounts of power are used to keep them cool. Digital technology is now responsible for 3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is that greener alternatives are emerging.

Hardware

• Eco Smartphones
• Tablets
• Computers

Internet Services

• Hosting packages(active tab)
• Search Engines
• Email
• Web
• Domains
• Broadband
• Servers
• Cloud storage

Green https://www.greennet.org.uk/internet-services

Technology Repair is getting easier and cheaper

Many technology items have for a long time been made in a way that is either not repairable, or is expensive to repair, and repairing our technology, using each device for another couple of years is one of the significant actions we can take. The bulk of emissions and finite resource consumption by technology occurs during production. So each extra year you use a device, its annual contribution to climate change is significantly reduced.

The expense of parts and repair of technology has limited the amount of refurbishment and repair. However, recently the Government has introduced new ecodesign and labelling requirements for specified electrical products sold in the UK called the Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products and Energy Information Regulations 2021. The “Right to Repair Regulations”, as they area also known as, aim to increase producer responsibility, reduce energy usage, electrical waste, and enable consumers to identify which products are the most energy efficient.

From July 2021, this ‘right to repair’ provides professional repairers with the right to access technical information and spare parts, but manufacturers have been given a period of up to 2 years to actually make spare parts available. It is not clear how available the parts or information will be to the general public. However, the international Repair Cafe website has a lot of guides on how to mend technology if you fancy a go yourself.

What is the Digital Divide and Digital Inclusion?

The digital divide is the gap between people who have full access to digital technologies, such as the internet and computers, and those who do not. Our society is increasingly requiring us to access services online: digital banking, online doctor's appointments, children completing homework assignments. If you are struggling to eat and pay the rent, computers and the internet are out of reach.

So 8Bits1Byte, an Oswestry based IT company, are working to increase digital inclusion by supporting people who do not have access to tablets, laptops or computers. They take old, unused tablets and laptops donated by the community and businesses, fix and refurbish them, and make them available to individuals, charity organisations and public centres such as libraries and community halls. By using a Linux based operating system they are able to use older equipment which doesn’t meet todays latest Windows requirements. If you are in their area and would like to donate, complete the donation form on their website and they will contact you to arrange your drop-off

Eco Smartphones

What would make a smartphone into an eco-smartphone? It's a question I hadn't asked because I didn't think there were any options. So, the most comprehensive list of criteria I could find was:

• It needs to have parts that can be easily replaced and repaired
• It needs to have a low radiation emission
• It needs to be made from recyclable materials
• It needs to be designed to last longer than typical smartphones
• Its manufacturing process needs to have a low environmental impact
• sustainability of the operating practices of the company making it

Things you can do - Buy second hand

Your phone contains a lot of precious metals. It is important that these are recycled rather than ending up in a landfill. A smartphone is about 40% metals, 40% plastics, 20% ceramics and resin. It contains the ‘conflict minerals’ tungsten, tin, tantalum and gold. The circuit board also contains silver, nickel and lead. The battery contains cobalt, zinc and copper, as well as arsenic, chromium and selenium. All of these can leak, especially during disposal, and unless these metals are recycled, more mining is needed to produce more of them. This often means communities are displaced, biodiversity destroyed, and large amounts of water and fossil fuels are used to extract and process them.

Second-hand phones can be purchased in a number of shops as well as on internet sites. Many brands sell refurbished phones which come with a product guarantee.

Smartphone or feature phone?

Feature phones are simpler than smartphones. A feature phone has fewer functions, consumes less energy, and is cheaper, and really easy to use. They typically provide voice calling, text messaging and basic multimedia and internet capabilities. If that is all you want from your phone, and like the idea of a longer lasting battery, a feature phone could be the phone for you. Makes include Nokia, Doro, Alcatel and Samsung.

The Fairphone

Switching your mobile to the Fairphone 4 is an easy way to make a difference to the environment. It is made from Fairtrade and recycled materials and you can upgrade parts yourself. Each phone comes with a screwdriver to open it up and replace parts, which are supplied from their website.

Fairphone is leading the way on supply chain transparency. It has spent years mapping its supply chains to ensure that the minerals in its phones have been responsibly sourced and labour rights are upheld throughout its supply chains. The Fairphone 3 has received great reviews; 4/5 from The Guardian and 10/10 for repairability from iFixit.

You won't find a Fairphone being sold with a monthly contract from the common network providers. You can buy it from the Fairphone website, but buying any phone as a single purchase is a lot of money to find. The only monthly contract deal we found that offers a Fairphone is the Co

your usual suppliers though.

Find out more about e-waste.

The phone is available in the UK from Your Co-op Mobile (previously known as The Phone Co-op) or directly from the Fairphone website.

Eco Tablets

Eco Computers

Environmental impact In the EU, around 211 million smartphones are sold annually. Our insatiable hunger for new products is putting an ever-greater strain on the environment, primarily through the demand for raw materials, the use of harmful chemicals, the creation of waste, and the production of carbon.

A 2019 study stated that the annual climate impact of all EU phone stock was 14.12 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, with manufacturing, distribution and disposal accounting for around 72% of a phone’s climate impact.

Extending the life of smartphones is a vital way of reducing their impact.

The expected lifetime of a smartphone is three years, but extending the lifetime of all phones in the EU by just one year would save 2.1 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the equivalent of taking over a million cars off the roads.

Planet Friendly Search Engines

Yes, there are some! There are 3 search engines that we are aware of that are zero carbon or carbon negative: Ecosia, Duck Duck Go, and Google. Ecosia is carbon negative and uses its profits to plant trees, and it has planted millions! Duck Duck Go is carbon negative and has its focus on user privacy. Then there is Google, that does neither. There is more information below for each of them.

Ecosia - search engine for the planet

Ecosia is a search engine that uses the profit they make from your searches to plant trees all around the world. So far they have planted over 161 illion trees in over 13,000 locations. Around a million trees are planted each month, just by you searching. You don't pay a thing.

How does it work?

• You search the web

• The ads generated from your search create income

• Ecosia pays for trees to be planted (and protected) in biodiversity hotspots across the world.

Your searches are carbon negative, and you don't pay a thing.

Ecosia searches are Carbon Negative

Ecosia is a not-for-profit business, with no shareholders to pay, so they can use 100% of their profits for the benefit of the environment. Some of their profits are invested in solar farms, which create enough energy to power all your searches - twice over. Making every search carbon negative. Impressively, calculations showed that every Ecosia search removes 0.5 kg of CO2 from the air.

Over 161 million trees planted

They don't stop there, the rest of their profit is used to plant and protect trees, mainly in deforested areas that had high biodiversity. Their monthly tree planting average is about a million trees.

Monthly income, expenditure and planting figures are posted on the Ecosia website.

See which companies lead to a greener world

Ecosia rates the climate-friendliness of a company to combat Greenwash

Addtionally, Ecosia have developed a climate-friendly rating system for search results. If a company is a particularly climate-friendly organisation, it will have a green leaf beside it. If a company has a strong negative impact on the environment, a coal plant will appear beside it to highlight that the company has a strong negative impact on the environment, helping you to identify greenwash, and make clearer decisions.

Are Countries going to make 1.5^oC - the Climate Action Tracker is assessing their progress

Ecosia have also introduced a Climate Action Tracker where, if you search for a country, that country’s climate impact and their contribution to the global goal of staying within 1.5°C of warming is rated, giving you an idea of which governments are doing enough to fight the climate crisis.

Large company impacts tracked

Duck Duck Go

https://www.neowin.net/news/duckduckgo-invests-in-carbon-offsets-making-it-carbon-negative/

 

 

Page last modified: 28 Nov 2022, 11:14