{"id":73352,"date":"2024-07-01T00:49:34","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T04:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=73352"},"modified":"2024-07-01T00:49:34","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T04:49:34","slug":"the-other-side-of-words-frugality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/the-other-side-of-words-frugality\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe other side of words\u201d: Frugality"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For almost twenty years, digital technology has often been described as one of the levers of the ecological transition. It allows, among other things, the establishment of carpooling platforms, teleworking, the optimization of the energy consumption of buildings or the monitoring of forest fires, etc. But digital uses also come with a certain number of environmental impacts. How to reconcile them with transition issues? To answer this question, the notion of \u201cfrugal digital\u201d is often invoked. But what exactly do we mean by that?<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us first remember that there is nothing virtual about digital.\u00a0<\/span>French people are equipped with numerous digital devices<\/span><\/a>\u00a0– smartphones, connected televisions, tablets and computers, speakers and connected objects, etc. \u2013 whose uses are based on hardware infrastructure \u2013 sensors, 4G-5G antennas, wifi terminals, data centers, buried cables, etc. All this equipment is necessary for the deployment and use of digital services, whether within mobile applications, state or community services.<\/span><\/p>\n

By 2030, if the sector continues to progress at the current rate, the carbon footprint of digital technology on French territory (excluding, for example, the use of data centers located abroad)\u00a0<\/span>will increase by approximately 45% compared to 2020<\/span><\/a>\u00a0, and the consumption of abiotic resources (metals and minerals) will increase by 14%.<\/span><\/p>\n

To this environmental cost linked to the manufacture, use and end of life of digital equipment, it is appropriate to add the impacts in the sectors of application, with for example the consequences of changes in user behavior (distance from home to work in the case of teleworking or anticipated replacement of a smartphone after deployment of 5G) and transformations in society, with an acceleration in the consumption of goods and services, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faced with the environmental cost of digital technology, it is necessary to consider how to limit it. Two complementary approaches can be undertaken: efficiency and sobriety, or frugality.<\/span><\/p>\n