Existing initiatives working on the digital-environment system

Many initiatives have already sought to tackle some of the issues that our coliation is addressing, but none are as comprehensive and holistic as we have in mind. Examples of work upon which this initiative will draw include (but are by no means restricted to):

• Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership – and the environmental footprint of cryptocurrency
• ClimateAction.tech – using the skills of tech workers to accelerate climate action
• climatecare and their work on the carbon footprint of the Internet
• Digitalisierung und sozial-ökologische Transformation (Digitalization and Sustainability) project – a cooperation between the Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) and the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW)
• EIT Raw Materials Academy – especially learning map of the lifecycle of a phone
• Ericsson‘s understandings of environmental sustainability
• The UK’s EPSRC Digital Economy’s Theme on Sustainable Digital Society
• EuroDig wiki – drowning in data – lists useful references and resources
• The European Commission’s work on digital sustainability
• The European Space Agency’s work on space trash and debris
• GeSI‘s work seeking to enable digital sustainability
• The GIP Digital Watch observatory on Digital and Environment
• The Global e-Waste Statistics Partnership (GESP) founded by the ITU, UNU and ISWA
• Greenpeace’s work on greener electronics
• The Green Web Foundation including Green Web Datasets
• The GSMA’s work at the interface between mobiles and climate change
  • 2021 report on The Role of Digital and Mobile-Enabled Solutions in Addressing Climate Change
• International Astronomical Union, Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference
• The ITU’s activities on ICTs for a sustainable world. See also:
  • ICT-Centric Economic Growth, Innovation and Job Creation
  • Policy practices for e-waste management)
• The Restart Project and associated initiatives
• The Shift Project
• The StEP initiative on e-waste
• Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance
• Some of the UN’s work on the impact of digital technologies
• UNEP’s leadership on an environmentally sustainable digital transformation
• The World Economic Forum‘s circular vision for electronics
• The World Health Organisation‘s work on the impact of electronic waste on child health

These represent just a tiny fraction of the existing and ongoing work in the field (and apologies to all those who also feel they should be listed here – please get in touch, and we will add you!). Now is the time to bring this body of work together, to find out the true environmental impact and implications of the use of digital technologies (both positive and negative), and what we need to do to mitigate hamful impacts.

Updated 4 February 2022

---

Return to Digital-Environment System Coalition