ICTs, the Internet and Sustainability: Where Next?

The report examines the intersection of ICTs and sustainability, arguing that the information revolution has fundamentally altered social and economic structures in ways that the sustainable development community has largely ignored. While ICTs offer potential for carbon reduction through 'smart systems,' they also create significant environmental harms via short device life cycles and energy-intensive data centres. The authors criticize the Rio+20 Summit for treating ICTs as incidental tools rather than systemic drivers of change and call for a shift away from formal UN summits toward more adaptive, multistakeholder dialogues to bridge the gap between the ICT and sustainability sectors.

• The report argues that the 'information revolution' and the emergence of an Information Society are potentially as profound for sustainability as settled agriculture or industrialization were in their respective eras. It suggests that governments and economies have become so dependent on ICTs and the Internet that they could not maintain services or transactions if these technologies failed.
• The environmental impact of ICTs is analyzed through 'orders' of effects. First-order (direct) effects are strongly negative for the environment due to waste, short device life cycles, and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing, network operations, and data centres. Second-order (indirect) effects are less certain but include the potential for 'smart systems' to reduce carbon emissions in sectors like energy, transport, and manufacturing.
• The report identifies 'rebound effects' as a significant uncertainty in sustainability modeling. For example, financial savings from energy efficiency may lead users to increase their overall energy consumption, or working from home might replace public transport commuting with leisure travel by car.
• The Rio+20 Summit and its outcome document, 'The Future We Want', are criticized for failing to systematically address the impact of ICTs on sustainability. The document treats ICTs as incidental tools for specific applications (such as empowering farmers or enhancing learning) rather than as a transformative force that has altered the underlying structures of social and economic development.
• A major mitigation challenge is the short life cycle of ICT devices, typically around two to three years for mobile phones and computers, driven by Metcalfe’s and Moore’s Laws. This results in significant toxic waste and high embedded carbon from production.
• The shift toward cloud computing has ambiguous environmental impacts. While data centres are energy-intensive and rely heavily on air conditioning, the devices relying on them may require less energy, and the demand for high-power hardware within individual devices may decrease, potentially reducing churn.
• The report highlights a 'paradigm gap' between the ICT community and the sustainable development community. The ICT sector often lacks a deep understanding of sustainable development, while the sustainability community fails to grasp the implications of the information revolution, leading to a lack of effective collaboration.
• The report critiques the 'summitry' model of international discourse, arguing that large UN summits like Rio+20 have become conservative and focused on 'lowest common denominator' consensus in outcome documents. It suggests alternative models, such as the Working Group on Internet Governance or small expert commissions, to foster more dynamic and substantive dialogue.

APA

Souter, D., & MacLean, D. (2012). ICTs, the Internet and Sustainability: Where Next? International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/icts_sd_where_next.pdf

Chicago

Souter, David, and Don MacLean. ICTs, the Internet and Sustainability: Where Next? International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2012. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/icts_sd_where_next.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Souter |first1=David |last2=MacLean |first2=Don |title=ICTs, the Internet and Sustainability: Where Next? |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=October 2012 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/icts_sd_where_next.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{souter2012icts, author = {Souter, David and MacLean, Don}, title = {{ICTs, the Internet and Sustainability: Where Next?}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2012}, month = oct, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/icts_sd_where_next.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }