Before I wrote that, you were probably feeling pretty good about the phone in your hand. Our beloved digital devices have a good reputation as a catalyst for sustainability, bringing key insights and action to our finger tips.

Digital experiences have a positive image in the eyes of the sustainability community giving us video conferencing, remote work and e-commerce all to reduce travel and transport to cut our emissions.

There is a darker side to them we must consider in their design if left unchecked their emissions could get out of control.

These innovations are not free, all of our information & communication technology emits as much as the aviation industry. This is 4% our total global energy related GHG emissions.

Emerging technologies such as streaming video, cloud gaming, blockchain, machine learning, 5G connectivity, internet of things and the metaverse are poised to boost demand exponentially.

Some experts estimate this boost in energy usage could take us to 14% of global emissions by 2040. These levels represent half of the transportation industry.

Smart phones, here I go picking on your iPhone again, have a larger carbon footprint than the individual contributions of desktops, laptops and displays.

The scope of the impact of our devices is massive and our most unsuspecting devices, our smart phone is one of the major culprits in the emissions of the ICT industry. I'll stop picking on the iPhone as it is one of the most efficient in its class.

We need designers and developers to consider green software principles in their work. I'll do a future post about them.