ntouk.com - Jerry Fishenden's technology policy blog

The focus on the IT industry's impact on the environment and the Green Computing initiative being promoted by Computing and others are welcome developments. But we need to be careful that we don't fall into a simplistic trap here - and merely equate lower energy devices as being a total solution to the problem.

We need to be both far more realistic and far more ambitious. We need to analyse and understand the full extent of the technology industry's environmental impact. Everything from the production, packaging, and transportation of software on DVDs and CDs to the way we function as organisations, including our own commuting and travel patterns.

On the more positive side we need to articulate far more clearly the benefits to be derived from the smarter use of technology - including the potential to fundamentally transform the way our societies function.

One major impact on the environment is of course the way we commute everywhere and in such large numbers on a daily basis. 62% of UK citizens commute to and from work by car. In fact, cars account for 85% of all journeys made in the UK. They also contribute significantly to carbon dioxide emissions, with 25% attributed to car use. [All figures from ONS] Even a less energy efficient old PC used at home might be an environmental improvement if it would enable an employee to reduce the amount they need to travel. Given that over 60% of consumers apparently have a PC at home, it's puzzling why we're not making better use of them.

Technology has the ability to change the way we approach and think about work as fundamentally as the transition from the horse to the car. But, as the headlines around last week's Eddington Report on congestion and road charging demonstrate, we continue to plan as if the current transport model will prevail indefinitely. Of course, in the age of horse-powered transport various pundits of that time also predicted complete seizure of the road network (and an insurmountable amount of horse manure that would prove to be a threat to public health).

Flexible working is much spoken of but in reality little delivered. Yet its impact on patterns of road utilisation and hence the environment could be significant. There are also much broader, negative impacts that arise from our out-dated work model: such as the growth in commuter villages, with no shops, schools or other community facilities. Enabling some of the active workforce to remain within such communities during the working day would have the potential to help re-energise them and result in more equitable economic distribution and improved, more sustainable communities.

So what is it that prevents us embracing the radical impacts that new technology can have on the way that we live and work? It's not a new problem: in the mid-eighteenth century, no-one foresaw that a little over half a century later one person would be able to do the work of two hundred.

So, yes please: let's adopt a green agenda for IT. But let's not go for an easy, marketing-led and superficial answer that takes a narrow view of the problem. Let's really show the potential of IT and our industry to play a leading role in rethinking the way we operate as a society and in addressing our own operational impacts.

Only then will we as technologists deserve a place at the top table when issues such as the environment and road congestion are being considered. And only then, when policymaking is truly informed by the art of the possible, will we reach sustainable, beneficial transformations to the way we live, learn, work and play.

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