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Energy use is the single largest contributor to the carbon footprint of the ICT sector. The ICT industry relies on the increasing use of electricity for manufacturing, distributing, and running equipment, applications, and services. According to the World Summit on the Information Society, electricity demand by the ICT sector for industrialized countries is between 5 and 10 per cent of total electricity demand.

An important amount of the electricity used by ICT is consumed when equipment is switched off or is not performing its main function. Today, these standby losses are of the order of 50 per cent of the electricity used by ICT - representing a huge opportunity for change and improvement. The International Energy Agency estimates that standby mode could be causing a full 1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

A European, Japanese, Australian, or North American home often contains 20 devices constantly drawing standby power. A standard TV set, DVD or CD player wastes up to 50 per cent of the energy it consumes whiles in stand-by mode.

Still, greenhouse gas emissions from the ICT sector are small relative to the sector’s share of the world economy. A recent independent analysis by Gartner Consulting estimates the ICT sector is responsible for an estimated two percent of global CO2 emissions. Despite tremendous efficiency improvements in electronic components, demands for new services are increasing, and so is the amount of total electricity consumed by ICT.

ICT electricity demand through manufacture, use and transport adds significantly to projections of future global energy consumption. Most studies indicate continued strong growth of ICT, but there is less agreement about how this will eventually affect energy consumption. Projections of the expanded use of information and telecommunications equipment in households and businesses in Europe, for example, range from an overall increase of energy consumption of 37 per cent by 2020 (worst case) to a decrease of 17 per cent (best case). These figures take into consideration manufacturing, transportation, use and waste management within the sector.

The growing importance and influence of the ICT sector to final energy demand extends to all parts of the world, and the growth in demand for essential communication and computing technologies is greatest in developing countries. It is therefore important that these countries develop their ICT infrastructure sustainably.

ICT devices can have a negative impact on the environment, however the ICT sector can also be innovative and help curb emissions too.

Take computers. Manufacturing computers is materials-intensive. It has been estimated that the total fossil fuels used to make one desktop computer weigh over 240 kilograms, some ten times the weight of the computer itself. These figures are very high compared to many other goods: for an automobile or refrigerator, for example, the weight of fossil fuels used for production is roughly equal to their weights. Computers and other IT installations are also remarkable energy consumers. The Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy calculates that the production of one PC requires 3000 kWh (that is about as much as a family consumes in a year) and 1.5 tonnes of raw materials, and approximately 275kg of CO2 are emitted in the process.

Data centers (also called server farms) are where internet service providers or e-commerce companies locate the hundreds or thousands of computer servers that provide their online services. Data centers use massive amounts of electricity; large ones can use megawatts of power, with each square meter using as much power as an entire average US home. Cooling is about 60 per cent of the power costs in a data centre because of inefficiency.

Manufacturing a cell phone emits the equivalent of 60kg of CO2 while its annual use emits 112 kilograms. Considering that there were over 2 billion cell phones in use in 2005, the total amount of CO2 that had been emitted into the atmosphere in that year alone would have been nearly 350 billion kilograms.

Television is another large emitter of CO2. Banning a television for a year will save 23 kilograms of CO2 into the atmosphere. In America alone then, there would be a saving of over 4 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Japan, Canada and Germany are just a few countries where the number of people owning televisions is over fifty percent per capita. Banning is impossible, but just turning the television or the computer off from the mains can make considerable savings in terms of carbon emissions.Green designs will make a massive difference.

The IT industry has realized the need for action which at the same time is of course a business opportunity for many. It has responded by developing more efficient and therefore more environmentally friendly products, known as “Green Computing” or “Green IT.” Dell, Google, IBM and Microsoft are just a few big names in the industry that have launched various initiatives to increase the level of energy efficiency in IT.

Being an enabling technology, ICT can make possible environmental improvements in other sectors of the economy, for example by displacing the need to physically move people and goods.

The ICT sector has an opportunity to play a leadership role in the reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by:

* Increasing energy efficiency within telecommunications networks and data centres and producing more energy-efficient products
* Using renewable energy industry-wide
* Applying communications technology to stimulate flexible working and conferencing
* Increasing e-commerce as a way to dematerialize transactions and reduce transportation-related emissions

With a facility for rapid change, the ICT industry can deliver energy savings and carbon reduction in a way that also drives economic growth. The Climate Change Working Group of the Global E-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) is at the forefront of UNEP’s work to harness the potential of the ICT sector for reducing carbon emissions worldwide.

GeSI is a partnership of leading information and communication technology firms, UNEP, and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) with a common goal of promoting sustainable development from an ICT perspective. UNEP helped create GeSI. Since the initiative’s founding in 2001, it has provided its secretariat through the Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics.

GeSI members have undertaken activities dealing with improving the environmental and social management of supply chains, climate change and e-waste issues, among others. Activities selected are associated with issues common to all companies and where collective action brings greater results than actions by single companies.

Given the rising importance of climate change, GeSI members are supporting an examination of the ICT industry and climate change, examining both the consequences of their industry on GHG emissions and its potential in providing solutions to this growing challenge. This project will provide the information needed to allow the ICT sector to contribute to global reductions in energy use and GHG emissions.