Early on, it seemed as though the 'e' of the information and communication technology revolution was also going to stand for 'ecological'. The dematerialisation of processes currently sustained in unsustainable ways by resource-intensive products, promised a radical reduction in ecological impacts. Claims about the 'paper-less office' were exemplary.
However, increasingly, the e-revolution has enhanced ecological impacts. For instance, the power and speed of computers' ability to handle graphics and the cheapness of printing devices has seen an explosion in paper consumption. Every bored office worker or retailer is now an amateur graphic designer plying old growth forests with toxic chemicals to produce short-life brochures and newsletters.
The determination of software developers to consumer every extra byte of capacity achieved by hardware manufacturers with more and more excess functionality, has resulted in the obscene obsolescence rates that are now the norm in this industry. Vast quantities of perfectly functioning computers, each requiring large quantities of energy, water and toxic chemicals to produce, and containing many heavy metals, have been trashed over the last few decades. The unco-ordinated scramble toward broadband digital systems will only enhance this.
This same hyper-accelerated economy has meant that improvements in processor energy efficiency have immediately been absorbed by a greater number of larger units. Only laptops achieve the sorts of energy efficiencies which all computers should have, however even these ecological impact reductions are undermined by the consumption of toxic batteries and the generally shorter use-life of laptops.
It is now apparent that the internet's anarchic claim to make all information accessible is leading to enormous ecological impacts as 'server farms' are built around the world, each with its own enormous energy generation unit.
In this context, a sustainments are few and far between. But they are possible. They would be systems that actively replace physical resource consumption by changing behaviours and attitudes. They would be energy efficient systems that shut down rather than idle in standby 24-7. They would be relations to computers of appropriate usage rather than dependence.
