It’s probable that you’ve already replied to a couple of emails today, sent some chat messages and maybe performed a quick internet search. As the day wears on you will doubtless spend even more time browsing online, uploading images, playing music and streaming video. Each of these activities you perform online comes with a small cost – a few grams of carbon dioxide are emitted due to the energy needed to run your devices and power the wireless networks you access. Less obvious, but perhaps even more energy intensive, are the data centres and vast servers needed to support the internet and store the content we access over it. A common convenience like switching lights on by speaking to a digital assistant creates a chain of reactions beyond your home, from one data center to another, as information travels back and forth. We rarely consider there is an energy expenditure beyond what shows up on our own bills for electricity and mobile data. Less surprising is that hardware production requires a lot of energy (so many phones and devices) even if it is easier not to think of the blights of e-waste whenever we buy a new gadget. The energy consumption of the Internet is enormous, and global communication technologies will be responsible for more carbon emissions in 2025 than any country except China, India and the United States. If the Internet were a country, it would be the sixth largest in the world based on the energy it uses, ahead of Germany and a little shy of Russia. It is responsible for approximately a billion tons of CO₂ emissions per year, with coal representing the largest share of the energy mix for many of the world’s data centres. This puts the carbon footprint of the Internet at approximately the same level as global air travel. So, perhaps shorter emails would be more environmentally-friendly. No doubt that keeping communication concise helps.  But we'll still have to understand what’s powering the internet. We cannot take away the benefits of ICTs. focus on the network. The question to focus on energy that powers the internet. Companies are aware, but they must actively take steps. There's incredible potential to expand. 

Sustainable development has been a focus of international public policy since the Earth Summit in 1992. It identifies three core objectives for human development – economic growth, social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Only by pursuing these together can the world achieve ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ 

In the past thirty years have seen tremendous growth in the capabilities and reach of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The Internet, especially, has become a critical enabler of social and economic change, transforming how government, business and citizens interact and offering new ways of addressing development challenges. Connected devices promise to be the major drivers of change within the coming few years. With higher demands for this technology from both the public and private sector, we'll obviously need to start shifting towards cleaner and greener energy sources. 

The internet still has physical infrastructure behind it. There are people who operate these machines. Carbon footprint is growing. Covid 19 has shown us that remote work, online education, and online everything will make us depend a lot more on the internet. On one side, it is great that until now we haven't had any massive problems with infrastructure. But on the other hand, we need to understand what is actually powering the internet today. We must transition to cleaner energy. Accepted that without the internet, we'd require much more carbon footprint. But that shouldn't deter us from shifting to more sustainable energy sources for our internet uses. Initially there were only 3Ps - people, profit, planet. But with the recent advent of the SDGs, the 4th and 5th Ps were added - partnership, policy. It simply boils down to the fact that if one doesn’t care, then, it is going to affect all. Even one bad actor can cause severe and many bad consequences. We must use the Carrot stick approach for this, as in reward the companies that use renewable energy and punish those that don't or won't. For example, we should find out about powering services like those of Netflix, zoom and then, maybe ask them to take sustainable steps. We must act and react now.