Digital efficiency won't cut emissions without hard limits, experts warn
A new study challenges the assumption that making digital technology more efficient automatically reduces carbon emissions. Researchers found that efficiency gains often trigger increased consumption—a phenomenon that can completely erase environmental benefits unless paired with strict emissions caps, forcing a reckoning for companies and policymakers betting on tech alone.
Originaltitel: Systems thinking and efficiency under emissions constraints: Addressing rebound effects in digital innovation and policy
<p>Innovations and efficiencies in digital technology have lately been depicted as paramount in the green transition to enable the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, both in the information and communica-tion technology (ICT) sector and the wider economy. This, however, fails to adequately account for rebound effects that can offset emission savings and, in the worst case, increase emissions. In this perspective, we draw on a transdisciplinary workshop with 19 experts from carbon accounting, digital sustainability research, ethics, sociology, public policy, and sustainable business to expose the chal-lenges of addressing rebound effects in digital innovation processes and associated policy. We utilize a responsible innovation approach to uncover potential ways forward for incorporating rebound effects in these domains, concluding that addressing ICT-related rebound effects ultimately requires a shift from an ICT efficiency-centered perspective to a "systems thinking"model, which aims to understand efficiency as one solution among others that requires constraints on emissions for ICT environmental savings to be realized.</p>