The purpose of the Observatory of digital technology’s environmental footprint is to create a central repository for reliable and verified sourced data on digital technology’s impact on the environment.
Because measuring these impacts is a crucial part of shepherding digital technology’s Green transition, Arcep and ADEME (France’s National Agency for the Ecological Transition) decided to compile all existing and future studies, work and reports produced on this issue into a single Observatory of digital technology’s environmental footprint.
The creation of the Observatory is provided for by the Law on reducing digital technology’s environmental footprint in France (aka the “REEN Act”)
In 2020, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Ministry for the Economy, Finance and the Recovery tasked Arcep and ADEME with measuring digital technology’s impact on the environment in France, and identifying courses of action and best practices for reducing it.
Since then, the collaboration between Arcep and ADEME has resulted in a series of publications on this issue. The purpose in creating this Observatory is to compile all of these publications, and to meet the objective set forth in Article 4 of the “REEN Act”: to “quantify digital technology’s direct and indirect impacts, as well as ICT’s – and particularly AI’s – contribution to the Green and inclusive transition. The work of the Observatory on digital technology’s environmental footprint are to be made public and can include proposals for reducing the impact that digital technology has on the environment.”
Some key publications
• ADEME – Arcep study on digital technology’s environmental footprint in 2020, 2030 and 2050
• Arcep’s annual “Achieving digital sustainability” inquiry