Is Internet Really Carbon Intensive?

Mobile and fixed networks have made important strides to reduce carbon impact, leaving computing activities, a study by Telefonica suggests. As always, methodology matters. Telefonica says it has included all embedded carbon footprint into its analysis. “All the life cycle inventory for materials and processes have been taken from the Ecoinvent 3.8 cut-off version database (published on 2021), says Telefonica. 

Ecoinvent is one of the most well-known LCA database worldwide used in more than 40 countries and is said to include both direct and indirect emissions, which means that it accounts for the emissions associated with the production of the materials used in a product, as well as the emissions associated with the transportation and use of the product.

source: Telefonica

Other studies suggest, in fact, that networks themselves have gotten so much more efficient that carbon emissions increasingly are dominated by end user equipment and behavior. 

Source	Footprint (gCO₂/GB)	Source of estimate
5G network	0.1-0.2	IDATE DigiWorld: https://en.idate.org/content/uploads//2022/02/White-Paper_Fiber-for-a-sustainable-future.pdf
Fiber to the home (FTTH) network	0.05-0.1	IDATE DigiWorld: https://en.idate.org/content/uploads//2022/02/White-Paper_Fiber-for-a-sustainable-future.pdf
Copper access network	0.2-0.4	IDATE DigiWorld: https://en.idate.org/content/uploads//2022/02/White-Paper_Fiber-for-a-sustainable-future.pdf
Customer gear (routers, modems, etc.)	0.01-0.02	IDATE DigiWorld: https://en.idate.org/content/uploads//2022/02/White-Paper_Fiber-for-a-sustainable-future.pdf
Computing activities (servers, data centers)	0.1-0.2	IDATE DigiWorld: https://en.idate.org/content/uploads//2022/02/White-Paper_Fiber-for-a-sustainable-future.pdf
End user equipment (computers, TVs, game players, etc.)	0.6-0.8	IDATE DigiWorld: https://en.idate.org/content/uploads//2022/02/White-Paper_Fiber-for-a-sustainable-future.pdf

It is easy to capture footprint from hyperscale data centers, which might suggest that part of the value chain contributes “the most” to carbon footprint. 

Many estimate that use of the internet represents about 3.7 percent of global carbon footprint. Compare that to the impact of a few other industries.

Industry	Percentage of global CO₂ emissions
Energy	25%
Agriculture	24%
Industry	21%
Transportation	14%
Buildings	6%
Other	10%

As always, we need to keep degree of improvement versus cost in mind (cost versus benefit). As much as 70 percent of total global carbon emissions come directly from producing energy, agriculture and industrial processes. Add transportation and buildings and you have 90 percent of emissions footprint.