Sustainable Development: The Role of Information and Communication Technology

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Institut für Softwaretechnik und Interaktive Systeme

Sustainable Development:The Role of Information andCommunication Technology

Alexander Schatten

www.schatten.info

KORSD Oct. 2009

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Agenda

ICT supporting

Mitigation

Adaptation

Information & Communication Technology –Environmental “Footprint”

ICT for Teaching and Public Awareness

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ICT – Environmental “Footprint”

Resources– Consumption – (Electronic) Waste

Energy Consumption– “Green IT”– Resource Efficiency: “A Factor of 10”– Desktop Computing– Data-Centers and Services– Software as a Service– Cloud Computing– Accounting

ICT as “amplifier” ofunsustainable behaviour

Photo from ezioman (flickr)

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Institut für Softwaretechnik und Interaktive Systeme4

ICT and Resource Consumption

ICT is consuming significant amounts of valuable resources Many resources are scarce or produced under questionable

conditions Valuable are mostly not recycled “Recycling” is done in developing countries Companies need to invest into recycling-

friendly product (“cradle-to-cradle”)– Having the whole product-lifecycle in

mind at design-time– Avoiding toxic substances like mercury,

PVC, flame retardants– Having recycling programs in place– Allowing easy dismantling of products

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Example Mobile Phone: Coltan

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Coltan:Columbite Tantalite

Mineral that is used in a broad range of electronic products

Congo:Most importantsource for Coltan & one of largest conflict-regions in the world

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Example: Microprocessor

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Production of a Microprocessor

In the 80s

~ 12 Chemical Elements

Now

~ 60 Chemical Elements!

Photo by Aranya Sen (flickr)

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Electronic Waste (EU)

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1/3 treatedappropriately

2/3

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to G

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peac

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Pho

to d

igita

lsad

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flick

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Treatment of Electronic Waste within EU.Numbers from EU Commission (2008)

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Global Population & Energy

Population Growth Energy Consumption

Source: UNO: “The World at Six Billion”http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbillion.htm

Source: Energy Information Administration (U.S. Government): International Energy Outlook 2009

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/highlights.html

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Green IT – Numbers

$ 8-9 billion Estimated energy bills of datacenters worldwide

25% Typical IT budget for average company

~ $ 1.900 Annual expenses for powering and cooling single server (2500 $)

5 years Doubling of Energy Consumption of Servers (2000-2005)

Source: McKinsey and Company, part of a report titled "Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency”,Malone, C. and Belady, C. (2006) Metrics to Characterise Data Centre & IT Equipment Energy Use. Proc. Digital Power Forum, Richardson, TX, USA, September.InfoWorld, Ted Samson (2008)Smart2020 ReportBorderstep Institute

70-80% Utilisation of mainframes (70s, 80s)

~ 30%Of Servers run under 3% peak and average utilisation; actually are using power and cooling for doing no work

50-70% Average energy consumption for cooling (HP, Uptime Inst. Study says: 60-70%)

18 Million Server 2002

122 Million Server 2020 (estimated)

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Energy Consumption & Carbon-Footprint byComputers (Examples) (incl. power consumption & embodied energy, data centers, PCs, network devices)

830 million metric tons CO2

equals 2% of global carbon footprint

“Some Computer Science Issues in Creating a Sustainable World”, Jennifer Mankoff, Robin Kravets and Eli Blevis, IEEE Computer Magazine (2008)Data from “The Climate Group”, OECD, Presentation 2009 from Klaus FichterPhoto from jmsuarez (Flickr)

assumed to quadruple by 2020

Global

Germany 2004: 28 million metric tons CO2

(Air Traffic 22MT)

2010: 10% of total energy consumptionOECD

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The Power of “10”: Game Consoles

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~ 200 WPlaystation 3Xbox 360

~ 50 W

Playstation 2

~ 20 WNintendo Wii

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The Power of “10”: PCs

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~ 2 WOLPC / XO

PC with LCD~ 100-200 W

Photos from Flickr: Gene, Plutor, John Pastor, One Laptop per Child

~ 150-250 WPC with CRT

Thin Client with LCD~ 50 W

~ 10-45 W

Notebook

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“Hummer Strategy”

Photo from Paul Keleher, Flickr

Data-Centers and Services

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… or Virtualisation,Cloud Computingand Software as Service?

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“Green IT”: Virtualisation and In-House Services

Datacenter In-House Replace Volume Servers with varying utilisation or low utilisation with

virtual machines running in one power-server Remove Fat-Clients where not absolutely necessary and replace them

with thin-clients and web-applications or thin-clients using remote desktops

Provide support for tele-working (virtual private networks…) Get consulting for “green” operation of data-center including issues like:

– Optimising Facilities– Highest possible operation temperature– Reuse of heat (e.g. for building/office heating)

Better: get rid of all services that can be outsourced (see following slides)

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What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is theIT equivalent of the Energy Grid– Rent services and computing power as needed– Use Cloud Computing to scale as needed

Typical “Cloud” Services– Operation of Virtual Servers (e.g. Amazon EC2)– Network storage solutions (e.g. Amazon S3)– Database Services (e.g. Amazon SimpleDB)– Application Runtime Environments (e.g. Google

AppEngine)– Middleware Services (e.g. Amazon Message Queue)– E-Commerce Applications (e.g. Payment Services)– Various Services (e.g. Zoho Office …)

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Amplifying Unsustainable Behaviour

Rebound Effects– More efficient steam engines higher coal consumption– More efficient cars (“Prius”) cheaper per kilomerter higher

mileage– More efficient production (“Tata cars”) much more cars on

the street higher overall consumption Enabling Effects:

– Modern logistics:• Flights become cheaper more travel

• Transportation becomes more efficient andcheaper transport over greater distances

Unplanned Effects:– More Communication does not lead to

less travel, the opposite is true

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(flic

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Agenda

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ICT supporting

Mitigation

Adaptation



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Why ICT?

Because optimisation opportunities will emerge, that you never might have thought of!

E.g. UPS: Left-turns no longer allowed!

Photo by iirraa (flickr)

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The Flat World

Thomas Friedman, ”The world is flat”

We move(d) from – Command and Control to – Collaborate and Connect

Economy/Society 3 Billion people reach for the western

lifestyle– It is impossible to fulfil this

demand with the current approach Economy, knowledge, work-force,

natural-resources are global issues

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In a flat world and a connected economy there are hardly local problems

Any significant problem in a country like Indonesia, India, China or USA…

is immediately a global problem.

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Example Indonesia: The Economist (2006)

Indonesia is losing almost 2m hectares of forest a year (an area about the size of Wales or Massachusetts)

Illegal logging also carries big costs for the human beings involved. Well-managed forests continue to provide wood, and therefore revenue, indefinitely. But those that have been overexploited, or simply carelessly run let alone razed will yield little or no money in the future.

The government of Indonesia (which has the world's third-biggest tropical forests, after Brazil and Congo, but the biggest timber trade) estimated its annual losses at around $3 billion. [due to illegal logging]

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IT as a Supporter forMitigation efforts

Green Supply Chains and E-Government – Think Global! Smart Production End-to-end Accounting

(e.g. Life Cycle Analysis, Input/Output Calculations) De-Materialisation Smart Buildings

– “If airplanes were build like buildings, you wouldn't fly in them”, Stephen Selkowitz”, LBNL

Smart Grids

“Although the ICT sector’s own emissions will rise as global demand for products and services increases, these are estimated to be five times less than the emissions that can be reduced through the “enabling effect.”, Smart 2020 Report

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Possible Contributions in Different Fields (Smart 2020 Report)

Taken from Smart 2020 Report

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“Green” Global Supply Chains

“Measure and Connect” is foundation for optimisation– Technologies like

• RFID

• Event-based Systems

• Data-warehouses

“Tag and Track” items through whole supply chain “Trash that Thinks” (Saar and Thomas, 2003) Work with (near) real-time data Standardisation (usage of standardised protocols and practices) Integrate with e-Government applications to enhance

transparency and better resource and waste management Check whether suppliers from second and third world countries

follow policies Global optimisation of supply chains (from supplier to production

lines to transportation to customer)35

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Industrial Production

Industrial Production is one of the largest contributors to global emissions (Smart 2020 report):– approx 23% total emission in 2002– Uses nearly 50% of global electrical power

Modernise development of production lines; software development, simulation, data exchange is outdated compared to “business information systems”

End-to-end monitoring of production lines ICT systems allow transparency

and accountability Optimisations in motor systems Integration into global

supply-chain optimisation Be aware of rebound effect(s)!

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Picture from ralphbijker (flickr)

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Impact of “Dematerialisation”

Replace paper-based business with electronic business

Online Media Reduce business travel Tele-Working E-Commerce E-Government

Taken from Smart 2020 Report

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ICT — Supporting Monitoring & Adaptation

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Degradation of Biodiversity

“Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.”, Science Daily

"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley.

"Amphibian declines may be the window into the future of what we can expect as humans continue to alter the environment on a global scale. Only now are government officials finally willing to acknowledge that humans have caused so much damage to the environment that they are even affecting global climate change.”

Vredenburg et. Al, 2007Photo by Adolf Schatten

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Climate Change

“The observed increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) since the preindustrial era has most likely committed the world to a warming of 2.4°C (1.4°C to 4.3°C) above the preindustrial surface temperatures. The committed warming is inferred from the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates of the greenhouse forcing and climate sensitivity. The estimated warming of 2.4°C is the equilibrium warming above preindustrial temperatures that the world will observe even if GHG concentrations are held fixed at their 2005 concentration levels but without any other anthropogenic forcing such as the cooling effect of aerosols. The range of 1.4°C to 4.3°C in the committed warming overlaps and surpasses the currently perceived threshold range of 1°C to 3°C for dangerous anthropogenic interference with many of the climate-tipping elements such as the summer arctic sea ice, Himalayan–Tibetan glaciers, and the Greenland Ice Sheet.”Ramanathan and Feng, "On avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system: Formidable challenges ahead", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, Vol.105, No.38 (2008)

Photo by hAdamsky (flickr)

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ICT Supporting Adaptation

Environmental Information Systems (Biodiversity Research, Sensor Networks, GEOSS, ...)

Connected global information systems and models Low-carbon-intensive technologies: e.g., more efficiency and search for

alternatives (transparent supply chains, dematerialisation of workspaces) Support in case of catastrophes like

– robust dependable and communication technology– Visualisation– Geographical information systems

Simulation and modeling adapted to certain regions e.g.– Tourism prediction in Austria– Water level rise– Development of

agriculture

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Resilience

Our global ICT infrastructure has to be given more consideration Communication in case of unreliable parts of the infrastructure or attacks “Economic Crisis” showed global-dependencies leading to “Domino-

Effect” Centralisation vs. De-Centralisation vs.

“Local-Pooling” Dependency Analysis & Management Mid-Term and Long-Term Benefits over

Short-Term (Cost) Benefits Open Systems vs. Closed Systems Developing Countries R&D, and company strategies should target

not only performance and price but alsoresilience

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Photo by mactent (flickr)

Allenby, B., Fink, F. 2005. Toward Inherently Secure and Resilient Societies, Science 309: 1034-1036

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Agenda

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ICT supporting

Mitigation

Adaptation



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Teaching and Public Awareness

Climate change, many environmental problems,resource depletion are– Global issues– Highly connected systems– Depending on many parameters and hence– Very difficult to Understand and Communicate

Tools are needed to enhance the understanding of the systemic nature of such problems, particularly for– Teaching purpose– Public awareness– as Political Instrument

IT can provide experience in modeling, visualisation, game development to provide such tools

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Video-Game: “Makes you Think”

49Taken from http://makesyouthink.net/games/climate-challenge

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Game: “Operation Climate Control”

50Taken from http://www.operationclimatecontrol.co.uk

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Game: “Operation Climate Control”

51Taken from http://www.operationclimatecontrol.co.uk

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Conclusion

Despite of environmental impact of ICT, clever ICT strategies can help to reduce much more emissions than it will produce

ICT Footprint: “direct” front-lines– Efficient IT (Green IT)– Target/Demand oriented IT (Cloud Computing, SAAS, ...)– Dematerialisation effects– Resource consumption and treatment of electronic waste

“Amplification Effects” by ICT IT as enabler for efficiency measurements in other fields

– “Measure and Connect”– “Green Supply Chains”: Global Optimisations, E-

Government– Certified Processes– Smart Houses, Grid Optimisations, Production Automation,

... ICT supporting Adaptation (sensor networks, environmental

monitoring, modelling, search for alternatives...) ICT for “public awareness”, teaching, politics, ...

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Large Yet Unexploited Potential of ICT for SD

ICT People Welcome Interdisciplinary Projects

Mantra

Dr. Alexander Schatten

Senior Researcher: Vienna University of TechnologyIT Consulting

www.schatten.info | [email protected] | alex_buzz (Twitter)best-practice-software-engineering.blogspot.com

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Sustainable Development: The Role of Information and Communication Technology