Green IO

Are you ready to take a closer look at the environmental consequences of coding and join the movement towards green coding? What actions can we collectively take to minimize the harmful effects of software development on our environment?That’s what we discussed in this episode on the harmful impact of code on the environment !Join Gaël Duez to meet : Arne Tarara, Ceo of Green Coding Berlin in Berlin & Anne Currie in London, writer of several science fiction novels as well as the much looked forward O’Reilly book “Building Green Software”. ➡️ Arne and Anne shared their insights on green computing practices. We tackled various topics related to : - green software, including grass-root efforts,- integrating sustainability in training, - tools for reducing environmental footprints. ✅ Don't miss this episode to explore "Green Software" and gain valuable insights on the tech industry's environmental landscape and web sustainability.❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectAnne Currie is a seasoned technologist with 25+ years of experience in the industry, known for her advocacy of green software and responsible technology. She co-founded the Green Software Foundation. She is a writer of several science fiction novels as well as the much looked forward O’Reilly book “Building Green Software” !Arne Tarara is the CEO and Software Engineer of Green Coding Berlin Software, a company focused on developing open-source tools for Green Software to reduce the climate impact caused by bloated software. Arne's mission revolves around researching the energy consumption of software and its infrastructure, creating open-source measurement tools, and building a community and ecosystem around green software. Anne's LinkedInArne’s LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green IO website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Anne and Arne’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeTim Frick’s book "Designing for Sustainability"Greenframe.ioGreen software foundationGreen Coding BerlinO'reilly book's "Building Green Software" (pre-release)University of Texas paper working group and blogConference in Germany about computing and environmental: EnviroInfo conferenceScaphandreCCFMax Schultz SDIAAdrien Cockroft's article : "Don't follow the sun"Dr. Melvin Vopson 'The environmental weight of data'Environmental Variables podcastTranscript[00:00:10] Anne: Write code that is absolutely good for the language that you're writing in. Because compilers do a fantastic job at optimizing your code for you. Don't second guess your compiler.[00:00:26] Gaël: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO the podcast for doers making our digital world greener, one byte at a time. I'm your host, Gaël Duez, and I invite you to meet a wide range of guests working in the tech industry to help you better understand and make sense of its sustainability issues and find inspiration to positively impact the digital world. If you like the podcast, please rate it on Apple, Spotify or your favorite platform to spread the word to more responsible technologists like you. And now enjoy the show.So, Green Software. Quoting my dear friend Ismael Velasco, « Our code is harming the planet » and I am privileged today to have two of the best experts European-wide, and I dare to say, worldwide, to deep dive about it. One is based in London, England and the other in Berlin, Germany. Let's start with Anne Currie. When I think about her, I have this song from Dire Straits, ‘Lady Rider’ in mind, because Anne is a writer indeed of several science fiction novels, as well as the much-anticipated O’Reilly book ‘Building green software’ with her two partners in crime, Sarah Hsu and Sara Bergman. The book is in early release, and I can't wait to discover the animal, which will be finally chosen. Anne and the two Sara(h)’s, with and without the H, are also pillars of the Green Software Foundation, and are carrying the flag for sustainability in tech in many conferences like ‘QCon London’ or ‘Apidays Paris’ (a leading API conference series), just to name a few.When I had the pleasure to meet Arne Tarara, we went for a walk in a small park in Berlin. This is how he likes to exchange, outside, surrounded by nature. And during our talk, I was astonished by Arne's deep knowledge on green computing, and his commitment to build efficient tools for developers in the true open-source spirit through the startup he created called « Green Coding Berlin ». As you can guess, both of them are seasoned software engineers having decades of practice behind them.Hello Arne. Hello Anne. Nice to have you on the show today, and I'm going to be super cautious with the pronunciation of your names today, so that everyone will understand when I ask Anne, and when I ask Arne, to intervene, so as not to confuse too much all our American friends. And I'd like to start with the usual question I ask all my guests, which is: “how did you become interested in sustainability, and in the sustainability of our digital sector in the first place? You know, did you experience a light bulb moment, or was it more like something that was there forever?”. Maybe, Arne, if you want to start?[00:03:20] Arne: Sure. Thank you for the nice introduction. I think the important point is one you already mentioned, that I have already been a software developer for quite a while, 16 plus years or so. I had just finished with my former company, which was mostly in performance, marketing, advertising, online shops etc. So, one of these classical building businesses, I would say, at least at the time, and I wanted to make something that had more meaning to me, and had a more sustainable touch. So, I tried to branch out in different fields. It wasn't clear if it would be digital or not. We have a strong meet-up culture here in Berlin, actually, same as in the US, I guess. And I was introduced to the meet-ups about green coding. People that claim that they can make the world a little bit better, not only the digital sector, in particular by using software. On the one hand, it was a bit surprising that you can be a professional in your domain for 16 plus years, and you obviously know that there's stuff like supercomputer optimizations, and hardware gets better over time, and more efficient. But you didn't even think about this issue in Germany. We have this pro work [attitude], like sweeping in front of your own door, i.e., basically just checking whatever you do, and see if that could be improved, made more efficient in any way. And I was introduced to this meet-up group and I would say, yes, it kind of had this mind-blowing effect on me - it was like « wow ». Actually, there is so much you can do. And this niche opened up to me. I believe green coding is still to a certain extent, [an area] that you can get to know very many people very quickly, people who seem to be the top players, with what they are currently doing at the moment, and that there is so much potential to be lifted, there's so much to be done, so much you can do with software. So much efficiency gains [to be reaped] that are still lying around in software field. And I immediately knew, OK, this is what I would like to do, and I looked around, and there were not many tools at the time. The tools that I discovered which kind of had my idea implemented in part, was, for instance, GreenFrame.io, which is still around. And I think it's actually from France, right? I picked up the tool and I tried to use it, and it didn't work at all for me, and it was not open source. And then I thought, this the natural way I'm going to contribute, but it was not possible. They will not act; they are not interested. I contacted the support team, but didn't get a call back, etc. And I thought, OK, I'm going to re-implement it myself, I made the green metrics tool, which is one of the main tools we're doing and said “OK, I also want do it a bit more professional, and be a business, and want to carry out research in this field ». And this is when I created Green Coding Berlin, and set up a small team of people that we would al like to work with. And now we're doing research and trying to make the sector a bit greener.[00:06:10] Gaël: What about you Anne?[00:06:13] Anne: I've always been very interested in efficiency, and a lot of that comes from the fact that but I've been in the software industry since the early nineties, and back then everything had to be efficient. We didn't really have any choice in that. The machines were really terrible, you know, in many ways, 1000 times worse, 1000 times less bandwidth, 1000 times less power. We had to be incredibly efficient in the way we wrote things. So back in the nineties I worked for a while on the first version of Microsoft Exchange, in these days, with one of my co-authors, Sara Bergman. She [still] works on exchange, you know, nearly 30 years later. It's always been interesting to me, that it’s still effectively the same product. But it requires 1000 times more resources to do its job now than it did then. And when you look at the world and the energy transition that's going to have to happen, you realize that 1000 times more resources, that's a lot. And we could really be doing with using that electricity, those resources, as efficiently as we did in the past, today. Except there are issues with that, you can't just go ahead and do it. That's the tricky thing to be doing at the moment. How do we align them both? So, I wouldn't say I didn't have a kind of an epiphany, a kind of like religious belief that we had to do better. Just the knowledge that we really could (do better). And this is something that has to happen and therefore we will do it. And this is a key way that we will do it, through increased code efficiency. But that's not the only way, but it is a fundamental way.[00:08:02] Gaël: I didn't do any software engineering back in university, that is not what I studied, but I learned everything on the ground with a tremendous mentor called Jean Yves. And he used to tell me already about the old days, you know? And he had this expression, that in the old days we had to break every byte into two. And it started already to be, yes, quite convenient. The computing power was going up. Storage was less and less of an issue, etc. But I could not forget what he used to tell me: you need to pay attention to memory resources. You need to pay attention, and we completely lost sight of it. And it's quite fun to hear you referring to these times where resources were super scarce and super expensive, actually. And that actually leads me to the question I wanted to ask you, and so I might lose my bet, but I would dare to say that if I bet a dollar or a euro or a pound with you, and you choose your currency, that the words ‘green software’ was not that widespread, I guess, when you started coding. So how do you see the evolution (of it) today and, maybe more specifically, during recent years? Where are we? I mean, is it that widespread? Or is it more like do we (Arne, you and I) live in some kind of informational bubble, and we actually think everybody cares? But perhaps that's not the case?[00:09:37] Anne: I think well, I'll answer your first question first, which is ‘No’. 30 years ago, green software did not exist as a concept for two reasons, really. Software just wasn't that much of a hit on the economy at that point it, it didn't use that much electricity, the software industry wasn't that big. It didn't have the impacts that it does today. Plus, also, you know, culturally, we weren't thinking about these kinds of things back then. But ironically that the kind of things that you have to do, or are part of being efficient and using energy well, for software we were just doing it, because we had to, because we had those terrible machines. So, in some ways, we were great, because we were doing a lot of the right things, though not all the right things, but we were doing a lot of the right things. We had efficiency absolutely down to pat. But that was because it was necessity rather than because we actually had to do it. But these days, I think you're right in saying that there's a risk that we're all in a bubble, where we think this is something people care about now. But it isn't. But it has become, massively, massively, more top of mind in the past few years. I remember talking about this at conferences 5-6 years ago, and people looked at you as if you were crazy, and we even got complaints. When we ran tracks on this subject a few years back, people were saying, well, that's politics, it's not technology, it shouldn't be included, in conferences. But now nobody says that. Everybody knows that it has to happen. There has been, I think, the IPCC report that really woke everybody up. And the fact that the tech industry is one of the biggest industries. We have to do things and yes, some of it is going to be efficiency, just like we did in the nineties. And some of it is going to be time-shifting, which is in the long term, even more important.[00:11:35] Gaël: Could we say that the awareness has dramatically raised? But what about the practices? Maybe Arne, you want to comment on this one? Did you really see a significant change in the way people code, even if they are aware of the ecological crisis that we are into at the moment?[00:11:55] Arne: I think part of every business that everybody does (or should do) is to do a bit of research, asking: ‘has this maybe come up before’? Have people been talking about green coding before? Are we currently on a hype or are we currently in some kind of a valley [trough], so to say? And if you look back in the academic world, there were already, in 2007 – 2010, very many papers around green coding. There was the university in Texas who had this Archer supercomputer where you could actually measure all your code and before even RAPL was out there. Or perhaps it was around the same time.  which I think we would come to technologies later. But let’s put it out there for the moment that one measuring technique is the processor itself. You could already do it on systems that were out there. But basically, nobody was interested anymore. And I would say a drought of papers in the academic world happened, and now it's coming up a bit again, at least in Germany. We have a conference about it ‘EnviroInfo’ where it's mostly about computings and ecology in general. So, I would say that the green coding, at least in my historical view when I looked at it, has already had its ups and downs. And now coming back to your particular question, especially, I would say in the last year, I wouldn't say that there is necessarily a stronger move on people adopting these techniques. So, a measurement you could, for instance, take, is one of the most prominent softwares, I guess, like, cloud carbon footprint. And Scaphandre [a metrology agent dedicated to electrical power consumption metrics].I would put out here for instance how many GitHubs do they have over time, is there a search or something? I don't have all the data as I'm not the repository owner, but this is my view on how green coding has evolved over time. But, if it's OK, I will elaborate on this one a bit because you also asked me about what we are doing and how we see the sector in particular. We at Green Coding Berlin do not necessarily do what people often think green coding entails for them in particular. When we talk to companies or young developers, they ask us for optimization. They say, “OK, how can I make my code greener in particular right now? Which tool do I have to use to emit less carbon?”. This is actually something we don't focus on a lot in particular because green coding, as from my view, if you look at the digital sector as a whole, (it) is not a problem that is coming from the industry itself. The industry doesn't necessarily have an issue with the digital product that it's using. It's rather something that's coming from states as actors, from developers, and from consumers. The industry itself, in my view, has an incentive to tackle things that they think are not efficient enough. For instance, the machine learning models, because they cost them a lot of money. I think this will be resolved on its own. A bit of additional pressure might be nice, but it's not necessarily needed, I guess, for this to transition. Or things that are not cost effective, so, if you look at something like YouTube, Twitch and Bitcoin, they are in themselves, for the most part of it, already cost effective. But people complain about them a lot and think ‘can we not make this greener in a way?’, because they often don't use these technologies themselves. You will rarely hear complaints from people that earn their money with Bitcoin, that Bitcoin should be should use less energy. And generally speaking, people that don't use Twitch are more likely to complain that one such streamer can emit x amounts of carbon. But for the companies that run them, like Google, that runs YouTube, or Twitch which I think is owned by Amazon, it's a cost-effective thing for them to use these platforms, even though they will produce an enormous amount of data, which is harmful on its own. But it works for them. The incentive is there, but it’s not that intense. And I think green coding techniques on YouTube will take a while until they're implemented if they are not directly cost effective, for instance. On the flip side, the developers are becoming more concerned. This is what we see, for instance, as a company. But this overlap of business and interest, I think this is still in the making, and I'm not really sure if this is the biggest driver. So, I think that green coding, and the effect (coming back to your question in particular), will mostly happen. And this is also what we work on at “Green Coding Berlin”, in particular through regulations. And this means that you have to have the transparency first. And this is what our tools are mostly doing. They are giving developers and users transparency. They make stuff comparable, and then some someone can step in, like regulators or society, to force that optimization techniques, or limits can be implied.[00:16:42] Gaël: And how do you enable more transparency to happen when we have so many issues? And I'm not going to brag or quote too much during this discussion, from Max Schulz from the SDIA. But he's got a point when he says, again and again, that especially the main hyper-scalers are not providing enough comparable and transparent data to truly leverage everything that we could do in computing. Do you also believe that it's an issue? Or actually, what you were saying is that with the tools that you've developed or the approaches that you encourage people to follow, there is a way to become more efficient? Even if some data are missing. And I know that all the hyper-scalers are, I would say, not doing things at the same speed. But I will not enter into this debate here.[00:17:38] Anne: It's interesting with the hyperscalers, they are interesting because you can put pressure on them. Even, obviously, Governments and things could put pressure on them, but it's amazing how much pressure users, customers can put on them. If you say, « Look, I want this, I'm demanding better carbon footprint, measure(s), I'm demanding this information ». They are quite customer, well, I say they are, not, they are. AWS. Amazon is quite customer responsive.  Actually, Azure is quite customer responsive as well. Google not so much, but if you raise this, if enough customers raise it, and it doesn't require that many, and you keep raising it, they (hyper-scalers) will see that there's customer demand for it, and then they will do it. When Amazon talks about being customer obsessed, they actually are. If you keep raising (it), if a handful of people, not that many, just keep raising this, with AWS reps, we have a good chance of getting it. And we got those sustainability commitments. Whether they will be sufficient in the end remains to be seen. But we have made progress by getting folk to raise issues with their providers.[00:18:45] Arne: I think this is one of the big levers to go to, that you have to put the pressure on the cloud providers, either through the user side or through a regulatory side. And, for instance, this is what our tools are trying to do. A lot of people run an extensive amount of CI/CD pipelines, and what our tools do is that they simply create an easy machine learning model that's based on an open database of server energy consumption, called spec power, and then you plug that into a bit of code, so that it can be digestible by GitHub actions. This is their pipeline product. Or by GitLab CI. This is their pipeline product. And then you just see at the end how much your pipeline is consuming, and you see it for your hundreds or thousands of pipelines. And then you have a number, at least at the end of the month, and you can see if this number is going up or going down, and then you can go the route that Anne was suggesting and saying: “Hey, this number is maybe not the best because this company green coding building is doing it from the outside in. So why don't you give us these numbers? “.  So, they go to GitLab and they go to GitHub or Microsoft in particular. And they say, « We want better numbers. It's not so hard for you to give them to us. And now we see that it's possible to actually, somebody can do it from the outside in. So why don't you give us these numbers so we can be better ». But we believe that people need to see this to a certain extent before they can even ask the right questions. [00:20:06] Gaël: It’s a bit like starting with the metrics, we have to create a momentum and then in parallel, put pressure to get better metrics and better data from providers. And if you don't mind, both of you, because we could discuss a lot about cloud providers and the general approach, but actually, I'd like to deep dive a bit more with you. Could you share the top 2 or 3 techniques or approaches that you implement, I would say on, almost on a daily basis, to reduce carbon or carbon emissions caused by software?[00:20:41] Anne: I'm a bit controversial on this one, so I'll start off and say, this is something that came up when we started writing « Building Green Software ». One of the questions that came up immediately from people [was]… “Oh, in the book can you cover some examples of efficient code?”. I used to write efficient code. Almost everybody I know writes efficient code and we all (this is terrible), we all laughed when someone said this, because almost the definition of efficient code is, it's incredibly custom. It is utterly and specifically custom to the very, very particular use case that you're interested in, and a really efficient code takes ages to write. It is incredibly bad for developer productivity, so generally it's quite hard to give people advice about how to write efficient code. I mean, you can say, ‘Well, I'll use efficient languages like C or C++ or Rust, rather than less efficient ones like Python. But even that's not so clear-cut these days, because there are new Python compilers that are compiling Python to machine code, or compiling Python to C. So, you can still write in the inefficient language and have it transformed into a more efficient one, because they know that developer productivity is really killed by writing this very, very highly custom code. So, it's hard to give generic advice. If you speak to folk who are really still writing with efficient code, for example, in the networking area, you're still having to write that high[ly] proficient code, the same kind of code that we used to write 30 years ago because you really, really need that super performance. And their feedback is generally: write code that is absolutely good for the language that you're writing in. Because compilers do a fantastic job at optimizing your code for you. Don't second guess your compiler. Follow best practice so that your compiler can optimize as far as humanly possible. It's a bit sad because everybody wants to hear some amazing, C technique, whatever. But fundamentally, it's just really, really hard and very custom. The best thing you can do is measure different tools. Get somebody else to do it for you. Don't custom write your own high proficient code. Find libraries and tools that are good and use them, which is what you need to use the measurement for. You need to measure to find out which are the good tools in the libraries, and you swap out poor ones for those more optimized ones, but don't attempt to do it yourself unless you are actually writing those libraries, I would say. It's a bit sad, but I would say there's no there's no killer technique that you can use because it's all hyper custom. You know, it's all basically asking around with your L one L, two L, three caches for a very, very specific use case. I don't know if, you might disagree with me Arne?[00:23:43] Arne: No, I actually have the same [outlook], I have the notion that we are very on a par here, with our view on the ‘optimal’, how good these generic optimization tips are. However, if you think about what we often get, [it] is requests from users who see these articles, that Amazon has implemented a new gzip or zlip compression technique in their S3 service and it saved them, I don't know, I think it was in the tens or hundreds of millions, because they had to use less hardware to store their stuff. Or that you see this article that states there is a 70% improvement in React by just stitching the virtual DOM, so apparently it is possible, on a particular product, to get these gains. However, I would very much agree that on a generic level, it's extremely hard to implement. So, there are techniques that have been known for many years, like using vector instructions, loop unrolling, etc., that do work if you really put the work in. But it's a very questionable if really, in the end, if you look at the whole thing. Also, the time the developer had to think in, how much the software will run in the end, how much it cost you building these 50 to 100 iterations until you get it working, if this really saved you something in the final calculation. So, I think this is a bigger question, and I think Gaël you might make a separate podcast on this, this whole idea of software life cycle assessment. This is also something that Max [Schultz] is very passionate about. But I would like to give you our approach on how we typically do it. I think we have the same idea that Anne mentioned, that measuring is like one of the first steps, when we typically consult with companies or when we do workshops with developers. We have these five pillars, so to say, so, first of all, it’s about understanding. People often don't understand the terms that are even used. If you talk about energy and energy efficiency, they don't even know how a network could even cost them in energy terms, that network costs can be linear, or they can be progressive in a way, and then [there is the question of] transparency. The measuring and transparency. Whatever you then have understood and measured, you should also show it to people and make it public. So as in GitHub, as a badge or something. Then continuity is a pillar we focus on a lot, so it doesn't help you if you look at it one time [only], so you have to monitor it over time. So, like the git-ops approach, that with every release, with every build, you basically have to check if your initial measurement or your initial assumptions are still right, or check if the product currently derailing, and you don't want that. Then the fourth pillar is comparing. If you are thinking about software, and you're looking at the goal at the end, the optimization, is to actually sav something, then comparing is often very helpful. So sometimes just looking at how much would database 1 - just technically identical to the database that I'm currently using - how much would this change? So just swapping libraries out, as you said, or swapping infrastructure out is often a better way to go than going on code level optimizations in particular. But they are obviously a point, so our first pillar is then code level optimizations’ wherever they make sense. However, this is then specific, so you have to really look into your product. It often means using specialized tools. So maybe VTune® or something, or code profiling techniques. This is very laborsome, and, these tools are also sometimes cumbersome.[00:27:18] Gaël: I would say it's a lot about measuring and comparing, rather than having one silver bullet, it makes sense. If it was that easy, everyone will do it. And I guess the question of software productivity, the productivity for your developers is absolutely key here. We need to take into consideration the full life cycle, and like you should take three or four times more days, to just release one little piece of code, and so actually, you could even use the energy better.[00:27:53] Anne: Unfortunately, it's more like 10 or 20 or 30 times as long! I remember how long things used to take. They used to take an incredible amount of time. I mean it is interesting, that in the 30 years of my career, there has been more than 1000-fold improvement in machine productivity, and we've used it to make developers more productive. And it's very hard to make the sell to your business that you should go slow, slow down, because otherwise you'll go out of business. So do you have to trade off what you can sell to your business, as well as what is a sensible thing for your business to do, as well as what is the green thing. You have to align them. I'm not saying throw out the green things, I'm thinking you have to find ways to align them both. And the good news is that ((there are)) all the modern ways of working with microservices, with open-source libraries with hyper scalers, hyper-scaler services. Arne said this himself, that there's an alignment, as if you're a big business, to make your stuff efficient because so many people are using it, it is worth putting in that 100 X developer effort to make it efficient because you've got so many people using it, (so) that pays off. But if you're only a small business, and you only have a moderate number of people using your software, you'll probably never pay back that developer effort to make it super-efficient, so you're better off just using a library. Don't do it yourself. Use a library. Use an open-source library, use a hyper-scale service. But I mean, we talked about code efficiency here, but I'm not even sure in the long run that that's going to be the big win that we're going make in the tech industry. I think it's going to be the time-shifting, because even now we're seeing that with renewables, you get huge amounts of energy at some times, and no energy at others. And that requires a whole different way of using electricity. In the old days, it was just, you know, flick of a switch, all fossil fuel driven.[00:30:01] Gaël: Is it something that you implement quite a lot, like chasing the sun, which is time shifting and location shifting, or not that much?[00:30:12] Arne: It is actually a technique we do implement, on workshops, with developers, because it's generally a very interesting technique to implement, as it suggests that there are immediate gains. I don't know if you've recently read the piece, I'm not sure who wrote it, if it was David Mytton or Adrian Cockroft, or maybe I might be mixing stuff up, where there was this piece called « Don't Chase the Sun ». It was like a counter argumentative piece. That [chasing the sun], at the moment at least, often doesn't make sense. I will elaborate on this a bit further, but I would like to say that I generally agree with Anne, that this is an enormous [energy] saving technique, and this is actually what, at least in Germany, we are implementing with the grid. I think every country it does, but I can only really speak for Germany by saying we want to have smart meters. So that in the end, when we have surplus energy, and we really need to not waste it by curtailing it, we want to charge electric cars at this particular time. And in Germany, we have a long way to go by incentivizing people to charge them at these hours so, that it's actually cheaper to wait. Currently, at the moment in Germany, it's not cheaper to wait, even if we would have smart meters, because there is a law that that makes the pricing even throughout the day. But if you look at the current state of how time-shifting works, we are currently implementing a small plug-in for GitHub where you can say, “Hey, I want to run this pipeline at this particular amount of time because the prognosis or the forecast says that there will be green energy at the time”. However, how the grid operators, to my knowledge, typically plan out how the grid is supposed to be, and it is very likely, if you're at some point where the forecast says there is a lot of green energy and the grid is already in a stable state and you demand more, then it will not come from solar or from a wind farm, because this is then already curtailed, because the grid needs this bit planning ahead so they will more likely act, drive the power plant that runs on coal a bit more up. But this is a temporary problem to my understanding, as if they learn these signals over time, so even if you do that 5, 10 times, the grid will learn, then they will actually not curtail the green energy so much, and you will get it. But it's the same as those network savings. It's often not an immediate gain. It's more a theoretical long-term thing until we can understand the signals better.[00:32:36] Gaël: It was Adrian's article, “Don’t chase the sun ». Anne, you wanted to say something, sorry…[00:32:43] Anne: Yes, I totally agree on both the « don't chase the sun ». You don't really want to be moving your data around. What you want to be doing is delaying it, you know, delaying jobs rather than moving data around to chase the sun. I agree with both Arne and Adrian on that one. It's interesting what Arne mentioned earlier: YouTube is an excellent example of one of the products that Google used to do their own kind of grid balancing, on their hardware. That, if you upload a video on YouTube, sometimes it happens. Sometimes you'll notice that it's transcoded very quickly, and sometimes it won't be transcoded for a while. And the reason for that is that they use that as one of their latency-insensitive workloads. If they've got a lot of stuff that's going on, if the systems are busy, they'll just shove that trans coding [down the line], it's a little bit later in the day when things are less busy, so they get better utilization on their machines. And right now, they're working on similar kind of shifting to try and move work to when the sun is shining and when there is potential to power it greenly. But Arne is right, that there isn't necessarily an immediate benefit to that, because right now, the grids might not have enough green energy to provide because that they may already be curtailing it. But in the long run, if you create demand at times when there is potential solar or wind to match it, then more solar and wind will be put in [to the grid] So it's not necessarily an instant win, but right now it's all about the transition. It's about moving to how we're going to work in that new world.[00:34:36] Gaël: I don't remember if he mentioned also this aspect in his article. But it's also that chasing the sun is actually an issue once you start implementing multi-criteria approach, because carbon is one thing, but water is another. And, you know, if you shift all the workloads in a country where you've got plenty of sun, usually water is pretty scarce. And we are experiencing several droughts here in Europe, and the same goes in the US. So, the moment you say OK, let's chase the sun for green electricity, you might also create a lot of problems when it comes to water stress. So that's also why I kind of like his expression don't chase the sun. Maybe ‘Chase the wind’ is a is a bit more accurate, but eventually I guess it's all about reducing the energy intensity, and don't go for a silver bullet or a quick fix that actually does not exist in this energy transition. That's how I understood his main message, and I could not agree more with both of you. If you're OK with it, because we talked a lot about measuring metrics, etc., so could you maybe share a bit, both of you, the do’s and don't’s when you measure, and maybe one or two examples on how you manage to measure for some of your clients.[00:35:46] Arne: What I see in particular is that people have very often very different setups which, I think is normal if people are trying to find ways how to measure things and there is no standard out there. I think you can separate it into two basic domains. There is a cloud at the moment whereby most of the measurement techniques are not available that we use. The cloud is typically more an estimation game. You have premeasured machines and I will come to in a bit how you do that. So, you have, basically, premeasured machines. You have something you could call a calibration curve if you want, I know it's not technically correct, but for some people, this term might mean something. But you basically have a curve that tells you at this amount of utilization, this machine uses this amount of energy, and this curve is typically nonlinear, which requires a bit more than just a simple M times X plus B. So already getting into the technical stuff, so [there is] more than a linear equation to solve this problem, so you need a bit more. So here an easy machine learning model is what we use, for instance, to get this curve, and then you can go into the cloud where at least the utilization, which is a typical Dev ops metric, or a typical monitoring metric that is usually available in many of the products, is what you can use. And you can, to a certain degree, assume that the configuration of the machine that you have already measured is very similar to the machine that's in the cloud, as this database, where we get the data from, are typically machines that are bought by cloud vendors and they often use standard configurations (not all, but some). And then you can get a reasonable estimate of how much a machine in the cloud would use in terms of energy. There's also a similar approach that cloud carbon footprint follows. They have a linear assumption, to my knowledge, but I haven't monitored it currently.  We have this nonlinear one, which is supposed to be a bit better, and I know there are people out there who have even better models, but they are not open source. So how do you even measure it? Most of the academic papers show that people attach a power meter to the computer, which is something that everybody who has done home automation or who just wants to know how much [energy]  a microwave is really using knows, so it's basically an adapter that you can put over your power plug, and it will tell you how much the machine that is connected to it is currently using in terms of watts or kilowatt hours, if you want to have more an idea of energy and not a current power draw.  And they have also USB XS’s, they have Bluetooth’s so you can easily hook them up in a connected system that can also then run measurement drops for people. But for some people, (it is still new for developers, because it's kind of under the hood), there is a technique that is called Intel RAPL or more like a hardware feature, I would say, not a technique. It is something like a power meter inside of the CPU, it is still more of an estimation calculation, but it's very accurate. So very many papers have already confirmed that it's very accurate to their falsification standards & parameters. What it basically gives you, as a developer, is you can write Linux code, and there is a function you can trigger, or a hook, and then you will get the energy that the CPU is using. So, you basically say “Hey, I'm going to start here, and so you make a start point, then you run a bit of code, and then you ask it again, and then you get number B. Then you have number A and number B and you subtract them, and then you know how much energy has been used between these two points. And what we do for measurement in particular is that we ride around these frameworks that already exist, so [there are] external power meters on board, there are sensors that exist. There are also techniques like IPMI which are also internal power meters. So there is this RAPL stuff, and we glue them together in one big open source tool, the green metrics tool, we call it sensor, that can attach these different sensors. And then we give this out as a fully-fledged solution to developers that already have software, which typically is now written in container form, and developers have already set up their container files, something like a doc compose file.  And then they can just say “Hey, please take this Docker compose file, similar to like a bash script or like a Linux Easy, and then I want you to run these lines, maybe run this node program, maybe run the browser » and then you're finished. And I would like you to tell me in between, for example every 100 milliseconds or every 50 milliseconds, I would like you to write down the energy consumed. And then at the end, you get all the energy nicely displayed in the graph. There are some statistics applied to it. [You can ask yourself:] “Has there really been a change from the last time you've tested it to the time you've tested it now ». And to make this even better, we then also offer a service, on the web for free, where we have a measurement cluster with pre-configured machines that apply best practice on how to measure. I can elaborate a bit further on them later, but they do exist. And then you get a better measurement. It doesn't fluctuate as much. It is more reliable. You don't need as many repetitions to get a good statistical, conclusive answer, and see if the code is really different to another piece of code. We try to bring it [the measurement aspect] into a tool so that developers can use it with techniques they already know, like starting and stopping containers, or firing up a tool on the command line. And then they get with the onboard mechanisms that already exist, like Intel RAPL, or using machine learning models through CP utilization. They can then already get a metric out, and so they don't have to be measurement professionals. They just need to know how to use a Linux tool.[00:41:44] Gaël: And this is where you can start comparing, I guess, or challenging the use of this library against another, and all that stuff that you mentioned earlier.[00:41:54] Arne: Yes, exactly. The way to go would be that you have a Docker compose file and then let's say one time you use, as a package manager, you use NPM to install everything, and you want to see if it goes faster or uses less energy. And then you use PNPM, or you use a different one. I think Yard is also a package manager. And you can see if this library or tooling swap will change anything in your build process or your program.[00:42:22] Gaël: Arne, you mentioned best practices. And I know that this is something that is very close to Anne's heart. Could you Anne, maybe tell us a bit more about these best practices, and Arne if you don't mind, you might want to comment on it.[00:42:38] Anne: Well, when I was talking there, the thing that immediately hit me and I thought it quite interesting, is, in the old days, you know it's worth thinking about, the reason why we did all of this stuff was performance. You know, it was like the machines where you had to ring every millisecond of performance you could out of systems. We didn't use to measure energy use, we used to measure performance; your time, how long every operation took. And that's a fairly good proxy for energy use, how long things take, how performant stuff is. But I was thinking about it when Arne was talking, and the trouble with it is, it's very custom if you instrument your code to say, «I assume when this message comes in here, and then this message leaves here, [I know)] how long that is, and if it's less (than previously thought). Because how long things take is often about how many CPU cycles it's gone through. And then how many CPU cycles it goes through is basically how much energy you're using. There's a good correlation between performance and being green, which is why a lot of these kind of highly tuning techniques are still used in networking, where performance is absolutely key; you've got that [indicator]. But the trouble with that is, it's very specific. It's very custom. You have to know what an application is doing. You have to know which messages are going through, and know where to put your instrumentation in. Whereas if you're just measuring the energy use of a whole system, that's more generic. Therefore, you can have tools that are generally more usable by everyone, rather than doing things that are very, very specific and custom. So, I assume that's the reason why we've moved over from using performance as the key kind of way that you measure energy use, to actual energy use, because it is more generic and therefore it's more widely applicable. But would you say that was true?[00:44:48] Arne: Well, I think you're absolutely right in what you're saying. And, if I speak to more seasoned engineers, then they often ask the questions like “Do we really need green coding? » I mean, we have performance optimization. « So where is the knob to tune if I don't take the classical performance techniques? ».  And I think you mentioned some of the green coding techniques already. I think they are unique to green coding, like time-shifting in particular, it doesn't save you any performance, right? It only saves you green energy, or saves you carbon emissions in particular. However, how we see it is similar to how you [Anne] said it. If you think about green coding and energy is now so widely available through many sensors, why not make it the first auto-metric? Because this is actually what you care about, right? You don't want to save on performance at the moment. Or at least this is our mission. If you really want to save on energy, why not take it, even if it's strongly aligned, or if it's strongly co-linear, with performance metrics in particular? When these metrics are not aligning, there is typically something a bit wrong with your code in general. There are energy anomalies, and where you see that, maybe, performance goes up or goes down. But the energy budget goes in a different direction in particular, which could be like mis-configurations, for instance. You could have something like a vector instruction unit in the CPU nowadays called a AVX - It was called MMX or SSE before, to help get some gamers in the loop that might have heard these acronyms. They can be turned on, and then the CPU is using more energy. But actually, it's not doing anything, because it's currently not issuing any of these instructions, and this is typically a mis-configuration. Something turned the unit on, and then it's using more energy, when it's not needed. And so, it could be as though you have your hard drive mis-configured, it's spinning all the time, and so your disk is not going into a sleep mode or a pause mode, where it can stop spinning the disks. You know you are not using the hard drive in particular. This is also where discussions about idle time comes into play. So, your performance metrics could be perfect, but still, the machine is on. So a green coding technique, a classic one, and this also is what our tool shows, that if your code is doing nothing at the moment, does it really have to be on? Maybe it is an architectural decision here, where you say, maybe we move from a super, highly coupled, highly integrated, vertically-only scalable monolith, to something like a micro service architecture that we can actually turn off between requests, because we see more pauses. Then we really see activity, so the node doesn't have to be on all the time. Why not use the energy or the carbon metric as your first order metric? And then, however, if you lay hands on the stuff, [the metrics] you tune the performance metrics, but the measurement that you want to optimize against is the one that is actually following the goal that you want to achieve. Anne: That's a great point.[00:47:49] Gaël: Yeah, I do agree. Especially when we know that we will, more and more, as you mentioned Arne, have to take into consideration embedded carbon and full life cycle carbon etc. And that maybe, at some point, as you say, it will be environmental metrics and not just carbon. Because we have other environmental impacts that we do need to take care of. And this is really a question of which machine shall I use. And sometimes using less powerful machines, older machines, is also a way to save carbon. But that opens a completely different debate.[00:48:25] Anne: It is a different debate, but it is worth reminding that there are three ways that the tech industry has to improve things. It's not just code efficiency. It's not just ‘be energy efficient’. It's also about being hardware efficient because hardware embodies one heck of a lot of carbon. And time-shifting. Those are the three things and we have to do all of them. We can't just do one of them. [00:48:50] Gaël: Yes, I know, recently I was preparing for a conference, and I just found again this amazing interview that Jerry McGovern did with Melvin Vopson. And I know this is a theoretical work, just to raise alarm, but Melvin Vopson estimated the amount of mining that will need to occur to build the server to handle the 25% growth rate in data on a yearly basis that we have today. So, plus 25% data equals that amount [number] of servers to be built just to manage it all. And he discovered that in 2053, humanity will have to mine the equivalent of Mount Everest. So that's 175 billion tons, I think, just to build servers, just to handle the data - we're only talking about the data! And of course, then we can say we will have energy efficiency gains, but the scale is still so amazing, that it is something that we will have to pay attention to in the very near future. I know that at the moment we are focusing a lot on energy and immediate carbon emissions because of the electricity (consumption). But the embedded carbon is the next big battle, and actually it will be, I truly believe, that it will be the main battle at some point.[00:50:23] Anne: Yes, and not just in in data centers. Every time I have to throw away or give away or do something with a working device, like a phone or a laptop, because it's out of support, out of security patch support, but it (still) works!  you know, there's just so much embodied or embedded carbon in that device. It's immoral, basically, for us to know ((that there is so much embedded carbon and)) to give up on providing security patches.[00:50:52] Gaël: Yes, that's true that we need to remember that, those end user devices. They account for three quarters of the entire environmental footprint during the ‘building’ phase, mining, manufacturing, transport, etc. So, of course, as professionals in tech, we focus on what we can do, which is mostly data centers and networks. But that's also true that when you talk with a designer, for instance, they are more and more aware of the tradeoff between “Do I want to enhance my code, even to do green coding, versus, how do I make sure I actually reduce the size of my code and not create extra complexities that will accelerate software obsolescence and hardware obsolescence?” But that's a very important battle as well. Can I ask you a final question on best practices? And I know Anne that there is quite a lot of good and sound advice in your book, and Arne, you already touched upon them a bit and if you want to comment, just feel free. But maybe, Anne, as one of the three authors of the next O'Reilly book, what are the best pages?[00:52:01] Anne: Well, the introduction summarizes everything in the whole book, and that's already available in very rough, pre-release form, on the O'Reilly website. And you don't even have to buy an O'Reilly subscription, because you can just do a trial and you can have a quick read of it. And eventually, when it's finally published, the whole book will also be simultaneously public, open sourcing. But not until it actually is finally published next year. All of that will be available. So, principles - this is a horrible thing, nobody wants to hear this, no technology person wants to hear this, but really, the best practices don't focus on optimizing your own code. Instead use code that's pre-optimized by somebody else. Because that is by far the most effective thing you can do.  In the long run chat GPT is going to become much better at optimizing; compilers are getting much, much better at optimizing code. You try and push that job off on to somebody else. But do be thinking about architectures and designs that will work with time-shifting. Things like spot instances, and micro services where you can turn things off, as Arne mentioned, or you can time shift them. Think time shifting first is my advice.[00:53:21] Gaël: I guess, because you're influenced by your science fiction work and you want to travel across time, and this is why you're so obsessed by time-shifting! But it is finally happening. What about you Arne, do you want to travel in time again?[00:53:41] Arne: Yes, as I said before, I also think that time shifting will be one of the bigger gains in the future. And embodied carbon is one of the bigger battles to fight, although there, I don't really know how the optimizations will play out because it's so opaque at the moment, as most people don't even know how, for instance, S3 is implemented. And what kind of hard disk, so it's very hard to say how optimizations could even work for a system like this, which stores, I think, most of the of the data that the Internet holds at the moment. I think my take on optimization techniques is very simple. Although we speak a lot about these, as I mentioned before, particular, vector instruction techniques, and these energy and performance metrics anomalies, so we speak about them because developers like to hear these super funny edge cases where something goes horribly wrong. But I think for a daily business, if you really want to save energy in your code, most developers know how to do it. So, there's really nothing you have to tell the developers really, to do. It's more that they are overwhelmed, as business is not giving them the time and the support to do it. I would really say that the particular key [issue] at the moment is transparency. Wherever you can measure your stuff, even if it's not the best metric, make it public, if it's on your own block, or if it's in the git-hub repository, or even if it's just in your notebook, that you at least know what your code is doing. And then the other thing is, to ask your management how much is our code emitting? Can you [management] not supply these numbers? « Ask the cloud providers » is also something that Anne mentioned, which I think will drive a lot of the transition - you have to ask for these metrics. For instance, if I go to the supermarket and I always buy a product, and I'm always angry that it's not packaged in recyclable paper yet I never ask the vendor [about the packaging], how can something change. There is no mind transition [reading]. I don't know what the English term is for It, when my mind goes into his mind, and so he obviously knows that I'm happy (or not) with the product. I have to ask for it [change). So, I think this is really the key, and such techniques like time-shifting. And I really have to say, and maybe this is a bit of belly rubbing for you, Gaël, we should listen to podcasts like Green I/O because you will hear about new techniques that developers find, that are useful and that should be employed.[00:56:01] Gaël: Well, thanks. And that's a beautiful transition to my last question, which is what are the main resources you would advise the developer community to go for, when trying to green their code. But Anne, you cannot mention Environmental Variable because I’m going to do it first and give a big kudo to Chris Adams and Assim Hussain and the wonderful work they do with the regular guests like you. So environmental podcasts are Definitely podcasts to listen to and I personally I'm listening to pretty much every episode. I've taken this example, so you need to find another one![00:56:38] Anne: Well, of course I'm going to mention my book.  “Building green software ».  And I have good reason for mentioning this because we are publishing it every month. Ideally, hopefully, we'll be dropping a new rough early chapter, and we're looking for feedback. So, contact me at: buildinggreensoftware@gmail.com, and you'll be able to send us feedback for what you'd like to see in the book that has not already been covered. So, if there are questions whilst you are reading it, contact me - I'm on Twitter, Sara's on Twitter, Sarah's on LinkedIn. We're very happy to hear you come back and say « But I wanted you to answer this question ». We will attempt to answer the questions.[00:57:24] Arne: I’ll also pick up the question, so, I'm monitoring what’s out there a lot. I have Google alerts that alert me about new stuff coming out. I read the Green Software Foundation newsletter. I read the Climate Action Tech newsletter. I'm a follower of this podcast. But I would say that there is no one [single] resource. I think this is what you what you are shooting for Gaël? So [for me] there is no one central place where you can find the all the best information. But if I have to name something that I think has given me the most value so far, with the most helpful techniques, it is from conferences. I think if people get a conference talk in somewhere where you have a sustainability track, [it gives you] that something that is a bit bigger, something to be watched. I think if you just want to follow one resource in particular, get an alert of something like sustainability conferences or sustainability tracks at IT conferences. I think it’s there that I've seen the most valuable content.[00:58:27] Gaël: Well, that's music to my ears knowing that I will be in charge of the Sustainability track both at ‘Apidays’ in London and in Paris later this year. I've got a big blessing from you. Thanks a lot. But yes, that's so true, conferences, they're cool. I mean, you can interact, you can discuss with your peers, and that changes everything, I guess from, being just a passive listener. And, no, I didn't aim for a single source of truth. I'm always a bit dubious with these approaches, but, that's great, actually, that you mentioned conferences because we tend to mention articles, podcasts, etcetera. So yes, conferences and the big fight made by the Green Software Foundation. I mean, they've got a speaker repository now, and I know that their approach is no conference today in tech can spare having a sustainability track, or at least some talks on sustainability. And I think that's a great approach. And I've gathered people from all over the world saying, « Hey, these folks ((are good speakers)), and as far as I remember, both of you are in this cohort of speakers in IT/TECH/sustainability, and I am well as well (full disclosure!) But, these folks, they can talk, if you cannot find anyone, then just connect with them. But you cannot have a big conference without someone talking about carbon, sustainability and so on, so it makes definitely a lot of sense. Well, thanks a lot, both of you. That was a very lively discussion. I really enjoyed it and letting you converse with each other. That was really was music to my ears. So, I'd like to thank you once again for all the feedback and insights that you have shared with us today. Once again, thanks a lot.[01:00:16] Arne: Thank you, Gaël. It was great to be on the show.[01:00:18] Anne: Thank you very much.[01:00:19] Gaël: And that's it. Thank you for listening to green IO. Make sure to subscribe to the mailing list to stay up to date on new episodes. If you enjoyed this one, feel free to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who could benefit from it. As a nonprofit podcast, we rely on you to spread the word. Last, but not the least, if you know someone who would make a great guest, please send them my way, so that we can make our digital world greener, one byte at a time.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

What about the 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste generated worldwide ? How can we, as responsible individuals and global citizens, take action to address this critical issue?That’s what we discussed in this episode on e-waste !Join Gaël Duez to meet : Jacqueline Mukarukundo, co-founder of Wastezon in Rwanda and Vanessa Forti, Associate Programme Officer at UNITAR.➡️ Jacqueline and Vanessa shared their insights on the complexities of e-waste and the steps needed for a more sustainable future. ✅ Don't miss this episode if you want to explore e-waste and gain valuable insights on creating a more sustainable future.❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectJacqueline Mukarukundo is a passionate advocate for the environment, co-founder of Wastezon, a Rwandan clean tech startup driving a waste-free world. Her zeal in Marketing led Wastezon to emerge as the best E-waste Solution Provider-East Africa in 2019 Build Magazine’s Recycling and Waste Management Awards. Vanessa Forti is an Environmental Engineer with an innate passion for the environment and sustainability. At the United Nations, she has been actively involved in promoting and monitoring sustainable development, while ensuring the environmentally-sound management of natural resources and waste. Vanessa is dedicated to encouraging global sustainable development.Jacqueline's LinkedInVanessa’s LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green IO website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Jacqueline and Vanessa’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeGEM 2023 - Global Transboundary E-waste Flows Monitor 2022FUTURE E-WASTE SCENARIOSWastezonSMART CITIES AFRICAUNITARGlobal E-waste websiteApple’s article: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/04/apple-will-use-100-percent-recycled-cobalt-in-batteries-by-2025/SCYCLE : Sustainable Cycles Programme at UNITARUN Comtrade databaseWHO : World Health OrganizationODD = SDG EPR : Extended Producer ResponsibilityGlobal E-Waste Monitor International Telecommunication UnionISWA : International Solid Waste AssociationUnited Nations Environmental Program "Urban Mining, the relevance of information, transaction costs and externalities" by Science DirectTranscriptGael: Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for doers making our digital word greener, one byte at a time. I'm your host, Gael Duez and I invite you to meet a wide range of guests working in the tech industry, to help you better understand and make sense of its sustainability issues and find inspiration to positively impact the digital world.If you like the podcast, please rate it on Apple, Spotify or your favorite platform to spread the word to more responsible technologists like you. And now enjoy the show. In this episode, we go to Germany to meet Vanessa Forti and to Runda to meet Jacqueline Mukarukundo to talk about electronic waste or e-waste. You know, once someone tries to run a proper lifecycle assessment of a digital service or an IT equipment, E-waste is often narrowed down to "yeah, we know it's bad, but we don't have any data to quantify it".Well, there is actually a big source of information, at least on the quantitative side, which is a global e-waste monitor published by both the United Nations University (UNU) and United Nation Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and Vanessa the associate program officer at UNITAR, is the lead author of the 2020 edition.She's also a true European globetrotter, an Italian who graduated as an environmental engineer in Italy, did research works in Norway and in the Netherland on circular economics metrics, especially on metals. In a nutshell, could we dream of a better expert to be with us? Well, we could dream of having someone bringing also experience on the e-waste circular economy, having her hands full of its potential as well as challenges. This is why I'm delighted to have Jacqueline to bring a unique perspective on e-waste. Jacqueline is a Kigalian entrepreneur who co-founded Wastezon almost four years ago. Her work has earned her many awards and a wide recognition as an inspiring African woman leader. Currently, she's also working on the Africa Smart Cities Investment Summit, which will be held in Kigali from the 6th to 8th of September this year.To be honest, she's also the kind of person whose entrepreneurship helps me remember that many of us in the so-called global north take things for granted and complain about issues that will build joke elsewhere : not having received or delivery in 24 hour, finding how to recruit talents. Well, when I first discussed with Jacqueline about the best time to record our session, she told me that morning is better because there is less power outage in Kigali at that time.Hence, a better internet connection and still her company is thriving, food for thought. Welcome, Jacqueline and Vanessa. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today. Vanessa: Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.Jacqueline: Thank you for having me.Gael: My pleasure. I'd like to start with the usual question I asked to my guest, which is how did you become interested in sustainability? E-waste in specific, but sustainability in general. Jacqueline, did you experience some kind of like "bubble moment", for instance?Jacqueline: Wow, that's a very good question. So I remember very well that I became interested in sustainability when I realized the harmful impact of electronic waste on environment and people's health. This was actually in 2018 when, back then, basically I was after high school and starting university and I started to realize these specific issues of how we deal with electronic devices we have in our house, specifically in my country, but also in developing countries like Africa.So this literally worked me out to start to think about how I can bring up solution to the table and specifically green technology industry cause that's one of the things which I'm missing in African countries. So I saw an opportunity to create sustainable solution to this problem. Also I wanted to focus on reducing and creating environmental impact of electronic waste.In that moment, while I can also create economic opportunity for communities, basically creating a win-win solution to both those who have electronic waste, but those one who correct it, which are electronic recycling industries. So, I never really experienced a light bomb moment, but rather a gradual awareness of the importance of sustainability in our business practices, but also it's a positive impact on society and the planet.So I would say that this awareness has really fueled, kind of feeded me, my passion for creating innovative solutions, but also sustainable activities to the environmental challenge. So at the moment, I feel like I'm very inspired to continue to create positive impact that can work and have a larger impact to the whole world.Gael: Yeah, that's interesting because it's really about focusing on the impact and not focusing too much on the problem, which is obviously something that we will discuss about the e-waste. And what about you, Vanessa? How did you become the environmental engineer that you are today and working so much on the e-waste area I would say?Vanessa: Thank you Gael for the question and this enables me to look back when I was a child. I remember that at elementary school, I had a teacher that was teaching us how to fold plastic shopping bags in a proper way so that you can store it in your drawer and reuse it when you need it instead of throwing them away. I remember that lesson, in a very clear way. That was very inspiring for me when I was a child. Since then I started indeed folding shopping bags and keeping them just for reusing instead of buying or getting new ones.So I would say that is a light bubble moment I had in my life. And since then I've always been sensitive to environmental issues. Also my parents remember I was getting mad at people when, in the 90s when I saw them throwing things on the street and back then it was pretty common. So I guess since then I really hated the waste problem. I wanted to do something to improve also the sustainability in general. At least I tried to do simple actions so that I could improve at least a little bit from my side. The little world I was living in. Since then, I always had that interest and I continued my path by studying environmental engineering.Then the driver was ready to try to find solutions indeed, to the problems. I've also been very much interested in developing solutions because we know there's many problems out there. We need to find solutions to leave a better world for the future generations as well.Gael: Excellent. So, Vanessa, I read, not entirely, but a good chunk of the global e-waste monitor because I wanted to get some sense of proportion. So in the global e-Waste Monitor 2020, it is assessed that 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste was generated worldwide. And I was curious to see how I could compare.So I calculated the weight of an Olympic swimming pool, and I got that actually this amount is 21,440 Olympic swimming pools. And you know what? I couldn't yet truly picture what 21,440 Olympic swimming pool meant, so I converted them in square kilometer, which is 26.8 square kilometers, and it is roughly a quarter of the area of Paris, okay. Not exactly but roughly.So if we want to store all the West generated in the last four years worldwide, we will need to erase Paris and replace it by swimming pools in four years. So providing that the density of electronic equipment is closed to the density of water, which is not the case. So we might save some presence luckiest.This data. Well, they, they were just super impressive and I wanted to ask you, where do they come from and how are they crunched? How do you build such a database?Vanessa: Thanks for the question and thanks for making the comparisons. Indeed it's a lot of data and we do actually compile worldwide data on, well, we start from analyzing production and trade statistics at worldwide level. We do this exercise for all countries in the world that are UN member states.So basically we analyze the sales of electric and electronic products every year. Then we also analyzed and imports/exports and the domestic production. And these are data that are available to the open public as well because they're published in the UN Comtrade database.So what we did is to really have a list of all products that are, that can be classified as electric and electronic product and we compile all this information at global level. We make a simple calculation that it seems simple, but then when you run this model for all countries in the world, sorry, then this will of course increase the complexity.But the simple calculation that we do is imports minus exports, plus domestic production. So basically we account for whatever is sold in the country as such so whatever comes in, minus whatever goes out, plus whatever is produced domestically in terms of electric and electronic products. So that's the simple idea let's say, and then we link it to the lifetime of the products. So we made over the years assessments on by linking this average lifetimes to the sells, we would know when this product will become waste. So at the very end, we have a database that goes from 1980 up to the current year. Then we are able to make estimates also over time and we have made estimates up to 2050. So that's a bit how we come to those data and hopefully this provides a bit more insights also.Gael: Oh, he does definitely. And how accurate should we think about there's 53.6 million. Is it like plus or minus 5% or plus or minus 50%?Vanessa: Well, that's a good question actually. We have tried to assess this over the years, and all in all, we can say that we feel confident with the data that we provide and that we calculate because they're based on real data that are actually reported by countries. So the production and trade statistics are official data from countries.Of course there is a certain level of uncertainty when it comes also to domestic production because domestic production, it's an indicator that is not easily or readily available at international level, and many countries may not disclose that information or may not be available. So in that sense, indeed there is a certain level of uncertainty. However, the model compensates for potential lack of information at domestic production level, let's say.So we run many statistical corrections when we are on the model to make sure to really limit the level of uncertainty at the very end, we guess and estimated the level of uncertainties indeed around 5 to maximum 10%. But it would not be more than that in my view.Gael: Plus or minus 5%. So that, that gives a good idea of what kind of number we should share with the general public and you mentioned trends. Geographically speaking, but also maybe by time of equipments., What are the trends that you've noticed recently?Vanessa: When we look at the categories of e-waste the trends that we have observed is that of course temperature exchange equipment are growing at high speed. So there has been an increase of 7% compared to 2014, for example, and that's the highest grow rate among the 6 European categories. There is a very big growth on consumption on air conditioners, for example, in the global south that we have noticed in the past years and therefore this is definitely impacting the future e-waste generation for sure. When it comes to screens and monitors, for example, the consumption in terms of number of units is increasing and has increased a lot during Covid as well, especially because of the, we guess it's because of the increase usage of those appliances at home from smart work. Therefore we have seen an increase in that sense. However, at the same time, those screens and monitors are becoming lighter and lighter over the years. If we imagine that we transition from the old CRTs to the new technologies and screens that are now very flat and very light, they became much lighter.So in terms of weight, the screens and monitors is the category that is decreasing over time. But of course they're increasing in terms of number of units. Just to answer your question on the regional aspect and regional differences, we notice a rapid increase in new waste generation in the global south.Especially Africa has been contributing to the E-waste mountain with a lower speed compared to higher income countries. But African countries are now also showing a very rapid increase in the past years. So that's a trend that maybe makes sense to highlight as well as the Asian situation that of course, being Asia continent that is very populous with many billion people, of course, is the continent that is contributing the most to the global e-waste generation.Gael: And there is one figure actually that struck me, that we've got this big increase in e-waste, sometimes in weight, sometime in quantities and sometime in both. If I understood you well, especially regarding IT equipment, and then there is this recycling issue. I remember this number that less than 18% of a global e-waste is recycled.Can you tell us a bit more about it?Vanessa: Thanks. I think very relevant point to highlight. So the trend that I would like to highlight is that, we have noticed, the global e-waste recycled is growing at lesser of a speed compared to the increase of the speed at which the global waste generation is instead growing. The global waste generation is growing a much higher speed compared to the e-waste recycling figure, and that is for several reasons. The first and very important one is that, while the global waste generation is modeled, it's our data that are modeled with the model I just explained. The e-waste formally recycled is actually coming from data that we collect and gather directly from countries.So these are data that are reported by governments around the the world. So the figure reflects what is currently available at national governments. It is also true that many governments, especially in the global south, don't have this figure so don't gather the figure and therefore we do not receive information on the amount of e-waste formally collected.The reason could be many. The main one is that if there is no legislation in place, there is no formal obligation for governments to report on the e-waste formally collected. There is definitely also not a system in place to monitor the recycling facilities or to survey the recycling facilities.The second reason is also that, of course, the countries that don't have a legislation would hardly have a well-working e-waste management system because not having any obligation no business is willing to establish in a country. So it's a sort of a loop with no legislations, it is easier or let's say it is more difficult for the US recycling to establish. Other way around if no US recycling is happening, it's harder for the governments to regulate the subject for countries with the legislation instead. The recycling rates are still low nevertheless so if we look at Europe as well, where there is a redirective for many years and the e-waste recycling is very well regulated.But still most of the countries are far from reaching the collection targets.Gael: And taking a concrete example, Jacqueline, could you t ell us a bit more on the situation in Rwanda when it comes to legal requirements, recycling rate, etc. Is it something that you can talk about?Jacqueline: Yeah, so responding to that I would say that I don't have like accurate data to support it, but according to the observations and the experience I had, one of the main areas of similarity challenge developing countries are facing it's correction, as Vanessa said : The correction process and the capacity of recycling the issue of investment, but also automation about awareness, the effect of electronic waste.We may think that normal people or public doesn't have enough awareness of electronic voice, but one thing which was being able to visualize is that : you find that majority of people have electronic devices in their house where they have this specific particular small room in the corner of the house where they drop out, maybe tv, which no longer work, maybe dvd, maybe phones, or like this particular mouse or this model, electronic devices, which are no longer being used.They keep it in their houses for what? So first of all, they believe that these electronic devices has a value into it. So they're expecting at least to get a low cost amount of money, let's say maybe five US dollars according to the value of it, maybe 10 US dollars, particularly depending to how this holder of electronic devices feel like his electronic devices still has a value.But one thing which happened back and forth between all the stakeholders involved in electronic waste management industry here in developing country is that you find that some of recycling industries are not willing to compensate the cost value this electronic deficit may still have. Also those one who still have it in their houses, they refuse to give it back. And where to some point they feel like "okay, instead of giving to back, I will just send it to the landfill". So by sending to the landfill or at the downside that this increase the impact, the cremate and environment. So there is back and forth change and understanding the law each individual stakeholder must bring on the table.  That's why we find so many electronic devices on the dump sites, on landfill everywhere. You find recycling actors saying that they're not capable of finding enough tons of electronics they may probably need, for recycling just because there is misunderstanding the value law this electronic waste has. This bring us so much understanding why the cycling blade is still very low in developing countries. Every, if I could remember, probably still below to 20%. So basically that's the situation, how the situation is, and I would support what Vanessa was saying. This is a very huge challenge mainly when it comes to developing countries, even though currently is cross boundaries prohibition for electronic secondhand electronic devices.But still, it happened illegally on the block market. I think it's a bit chaos, but I say regulatory black market for electronic devices because some countries has already set cross boundaries, prohibition for electronic devices, but still for some reason it tend to be happen in one way or the other.So that's also increased a huge challenge to how to deal with electronic devices. Yeah.Gael: I've got a question for both of you, and this is a very basic question. How bad is e-waste? Obviously wasting things is not very good, but why do we focus that much on e-waste? And I've heard a lot of stuff about pollution, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. But I'd like to get your insights for both of you, both experts, regarding e-waste.Vanessa: E-waste is actually, well bad in my view, when it is not disposed in a proper way. So as Jacqueline also mentioned there are many illegal practices when it comes also to recycling. Many backyard recycling is happening in many countries in the world. And when this happens, without the proper safety standards and procedures it is very likely that the person that is handling the waste gets intoxicated or inhale toxic fumes by burning cables or plastics. The plastics that is usually burned is containing claim retardant substances. Those are the ones that are very toxic for the human being, but also for the environment in general.From what we have seen, this is a very easy way to get rid of the plastic and get to the available parts. For cables, for example, the plastic casing is incinerated. And then in order to extract the copper this is where e-waste becomes fed and toxic and polluting. In the landfills where these illegal practices are happening, we as senior collaborated with WHO in the past monitors and we found out that there is larger impacts that we could not think of before. Even kids are affected or pregnant women are also affected by the toxic substances that are released on the environment by bad waste management practices.Gael: And Jacqueline, is it something that you've witnessed it or that you can tell us a bit more about this non-proper waste disposal. There is a famous place, which is now closed in Ghana, which is at Agbogbloshie that used to be kind of a nightmare when it comes to a manage waste, electronic waste but, you know, it's just one example. I've always wondered if it was something that you could find elsewhere or if it was hopefully for Africa, just a single example of bad waste management.Jacqueline: So reason why e-waste is a very big issue, we tend to forget the reality of the world we are living. At the moment we are living the world where technology is the future. Everything is being turned into digital transformation is being turned to using ICT tools and all of that.But we tend to think the lifecycle of these ICT tools we are using in our everyday life, we cannot really forget that we have specific iPhone brands, which are already on market each and every year or every two year. Maybe I would say maybe iPhone 14, iPhone 13. You know, there is always new version of the market and as a human beings and as a customers, we are always ready. We are always ready to consume these electronic devices, new product, new brand at the market. But the reason why we need to emphasize on electronic waste effect and how we can deal with it, it's by this reality of always higher conception rate all over the world of electronic devices and always new technologies which are coming on the table.That's why we need to stress out a lot on electronic devices until we understand the life cycle system or secure economy of how new conception lead of all the branding new devices and all of that can be able to be treated. That's why manufacturers needs to come in.I liked Vanessa's research paper, how it was mentioning the lifecycles of electronic devices by mentioning when this could turn out to be e-waste.So by having all these supportive information and all the stakeholders on board, we can be able to deal with it. I would like really maybe to a repeat mention about the minors we find in electronic waste. Electronic devices have like a gold, silver, copper, and other variable materials into it.But most of these come from traditional mining, and we all know the effect of traditional mining. So with having urban mining in place, we'll be able to extract this gold and silver, and create recycling process to be reused once again instead of finding them on the dump side or at the landfill. So this is all the involvement of why we need to really deal with electronic devices.Yeah.Gael: And that comes at the perfect point in this discussion because what you're saying is actually because of this hyper consumption worldwide, that we've got more and more e-waste and actually e-waste is a good proxy for this hyper consumption of electronic equipments. We should pay attention to this indicator and still it has become, and it is become more and more a business to manage with this e-waste, what you call urban mining. I believe this is actually what you've done creating a business around circular economy and the Wastezon entreprise that you've created. So I would love to know a bit more about how you manage. Can you basically pitch us what Wastezon does?Jacqueline: Wastezon is still a startup, I may say. So basically what's Wastezon app, it's like connecting app between consumers or household manufacturers and recyclers who are looking for secondhand electronic devices or electronic waste. Where this app is being able to help with efficient tech empowered traceability services where it's helping them to generate value with value addition benefits to their electronic waste in environmental friendly. Where, as I said earlier, before, it's like a win-win situation where these manufacturers and cyclists need to understand that these people could get a value into their device they still have in their houses. Could be a little one, it's dependent negotiation between two parties who want to exchange these electronic devices.  Then I would say that for now we have more than 2000 users who were able to trust us and translate over 400 tons of electronic waste on our platform. This really brought our mind to- and it's sort of- show us that we are actually not even closer to where we are designed to be. We always meet, people are saying "oh, I actually have these laptops", "I have phones at home", "I don't have any clue where to send it" but I also, at the end of the day, I know that it still have a value the only issue may be my smartphone have, it's the screen and I know I can repair it, but I don't have time for it.So for us, we create a chain of value between two parties on Wastezon app to be able to sell between each other. So for the long term vision we have is to create a future of urban mining in electronic waste. Cause we realize that's where we are heading and this is the future and we have to believe it and see how we are heading. Talking about urban mining and how it's the long land vision for us is that we have seen how manufacturers are waking up to be part of this journey. I have seen amazing work, Dell and some other, like even Samsung is collecting like batteries. I think has started or it's part of the plan to start next year to start to collect batteries in east african countries, but also in some part of Africa because that is sufficient of our batteries minors to produce new ones. So they want to tap in into creating those one they already sent to the market and be able to process it once again. But also in a way of creating sustainability and environmental impact, which is the same thing Dell is doing I think in South America when I was reading the article in South America, in some part of India, I guess.So this is amazing and shows how manufacturers putting those producer responsibility in their hands. So that's where we want to here to be able to help these manufacturers to trace and know where there is a materials or e-waste where they can trace it and channel it to their recycling site where it's being based.So that's what we are doing at the moment and we are excited towards the future is holding for us. Yeah.Gael: So 400 tons is already a very significant achievement, so congratulations. My question would be just to understand, well, the word urban mining, these manufacturers and these recyclers, do they kind of extract the metals by, you know, melting chipboard, et cetera, et cetera? Or do they also manage to extract some spare parts that they will reuse in new equipments on the market?So is it recycling or is it just extraction of new resources?Jacqueline: Okay, so explaining what's exactly will be urban mining, how it's work. This kind of the time, which is sort of like a processing, recovering variable materials and other materials from discarded electronic devices and even those which are as in urban waste. So it's a form of recycling that's involved extracting and refining variable resources from West Stream that's were previously considered to be of a little or no value. So I give an example like a Samsung. So we have learned that they're going to start for them collecting batteries. This is part of urban mining cause when you find batteries, it has valuable materials inside. But now getting access to it- cause as we know that- to get these variable materials, normally it goes through the traditional mining.So getting access to these materials, it's tending to be very hard. These materials are re non-renewable, right? So how companies are tapping into it, they're extracting those minerals they need maybe gold, they need copper, they need aluminum, or they need batteries according to what they want to use with it. Battery could be used even to create electricity. There is an amazing innovation happening with regards to how batteries are turning into electricity like in India, in some part of the world. The extraction which happen it's in a way of creating, like creating the value of it, and being reused once again in form of circular processing, circular economy processing. Yeah.Gael: Yeah, it makes total sense. Is this extraction being done in, I would say good working conditions because both of you mentioned how toxic and dangerous can be waste and especially e-waste management previously. So these urban mining activities, you mentioned also that they're mostly done in the informal sector are workers or freelancers working in urban mining, getting more and more protected, or is it still a bit a Wide Waste I would say?Jacqueline: I would like to clarify that for Wastezon, you're not recycling industry sort of, so we have this is just a service we do to support recycling household and manufacturers in form of traceability and supply chain of these electronic wastes. But responding to that question, according observation, many countries are setting up policies which need to protect environment, but also people health.Here in Rwanda, the informal recycling doesn't no longer work because there is very strict, very strict policies for it, in form of protecting people. So I don't know how in other countries it's happening but I know that for sure based on the experience I had in Geneva last year when we were looking at the position of e-waste treatment in a developing countries.Many countries are setting up policies which need to prohibit and protect their people in terms of involving themselves in recycling or instruction of electronic devices. So I would guess that it's getting much better because of the involvement of both sectors, either on government side, but also on the private side, which are like entrepreneurs and yeah.Gael: Thanks a lot. And Vanessa, is it something that you've noticed also at a broader scale. Jacqueline mentioned the work done in Geneva, for instance. Things are getting better when it comes to urban mining?Vanessa: Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean I see a lot of improvements at global level for sure. At least in Europe, there's a nice and big networks of experts continuously working on improving the accessibility of CRMs. So critical raw materials through recycling and by mining indeed the waste that is a creditor, but across the globe I've seen very nice examples and startups and businesses establishing now in order to improve definitely the recoverability and recyclability of waste. So I'm optimistic about that. There's still a big and long path to get to the zero waste target or to the fully circular economy. But still I'm positive about it since I'm seeing very nice examples across the globe.Gael: And actually, could you elaborate a bit about the potential of switching to a more circular economy? Because we talk a lot about circular economy, but I'm not always sure that everyone has the same definition of it, and especially how much it will help reaching the the ODD and not only the environmental impact that Jacqueline mentioned already several times, and how big traditional mining has a toll on the planet, but all the ODD.Vanessa: Well, definitely, there are good benefits of adopting circular economy, approaches in the business sector. The way how circular economy is most commonly referred to as let's say the recycling part, right? So really recycling what is already waste and trying to get back the resources into the production chain.However, circular economy is much more than that, and it starts indeed with sustainable mining and if we talk of mining of new raw materials, ideally is already not a circular economy in a way because that means that we need extra resources to produce new products that we are not able to get back from the recycling at the end of life.So indeed it starts from the mining or the sourcing of the materials, and then it goes through the production phase and the usage phase. Also the eco-design is a very important aspect of circular economy that in my view, it has been explored very rarely I would say when it comes to electronics so far. The challenges of recyclers are still the same of 10 or 15 years ago, let's say.So it hasn't become easier to recycle electronics, but it has become rather more difficult nowadays because of the products has become lighter, more compact. There's no more possibility to replace parts of a mobile phone or a laptop. So I believe that when we talk of circular economy, we need to touch upon all aspects of circular economy, not only recycling.Eco design as a very important role and in addition what Jacqueline was mentioning, the production is also a very big role. Also not really decreasing production levels, but rather sustainable consumption of products is needed in my view to contribute to circular economy.Gael: So Jacqueline, don't kill me on sight because it might mean the end of your business. But if we really wanted to achieve a true circular economy, wouldn't mean to have an obligation for everyone manufacturing something to get it back at some point? You know, you manufacture a smartphone, you have to recover it, not your neighbor, not in another country, et cetera.But basically, if I buy a smartphone, even if I want to get rid of it either because it doesn't work or I want to change, I can go back to a shop or any shop actually and say, boom, "this is a Samsung smartphone, please put it in a box that should be shipped back to Samsung". I know it's a radical proposition, but I would love both of you to comment on it cause that will enable a more radical shift toward they could design.So what do you think about it? Is it me just being crazy?Jacqueline: So let me go first. Responding to that question, actually it has a positive, negative side, but I'm looking for positive side. So, first of all, the second hand market for digital equipment can really provide more opportunities for us, refurbishment and repair, repairing of electronics. This has a very core part of our own business at Wastezon. That means that there could be an increase in demand of our services actually. People would come back either to be like, "okay, have these devices". So I'd sell it to manufacturers or sell it to manufacturers, or I actually need to refurbish it and repair it on my own and reuse it once again. Also secondly, I would say as many people choose to repair or refurbish their electronic devices instead of buying new one. There is also a chance that we could be able to enhance and be able to see environmental impact, as I was always mentioning because of also this new regulation you were saying, which can come in place about repairability of taking back these electronics to the producers on manufacturers cause this is part of the extended producer responsibilities. That's the only way we are seeing the impact could be created. And for the negative side, I would say maybe potentially this would decrease demand for on electronic devices. For that it could affect the sales of a new electronic product and in turn, it could also end up impacting the volume of e-waste generated, but also the services we're being able to offer since people are sending it back. But also maybe no longer need this repairing and refurbishment at the same point. But the main important thing here, it's to always understand that the world is involving, and this is not about making money.The thing here, it's not about making money from waste. We are aiming for the social impact and creating share value benefit among all stakeholders, but most importantly to the world. So that's what we are aiming for. So we always try to stay up to date especially with coming with the technology needed at the market and how to make it easier to both involved people in those household and even those recycling or manufacturers.So that's how we stay positive into it.Gael: And what about you, Vanessa, what do you think about my crazy idea?Vanessa: Thinking more of a global level, this is something we have been discussing also in the context of EPR. No extended producer responsibility multiple times, and this was maybe even the original idea when this extended pro responsibility concept was designed. However, looking at the global dynamics and dimensions of the electronic industry, it does not be very easy to set up this system because as you can imagine there are few producers, larger producers in the world that are responsible for the majority of the production of electronics nowadays. But most likely they don't have one representated in each countries in the world.So this would mean also cross-country shipments. When it comes to cross-country shipments, that is also narrowed down to cross-country, let's say, legislations and agreements on this. So that is a bit of the reason, in my view, why it has been very hard to set up such a system. Ideally, it would be a nice solution for sure.So I agree with that. In practice, there might be challenges in doing that. But nevertheless the EPR concept somehow embeds this responsibility of producers because yeah, there is a obligation for taking back products. But nowadays, at least in Europe those products that are taken back and sent recycling are just a mix of different brands, they're not brand specific. There are some examples though, in the northern of Europe where brands have established their own recycling systems for only their own branded products and have developed technologies on how to optimize recycling for their products. And that may be a good example and it could be in the near future that we will see more than these examples.Gael: Oh actually Vanessa, that lead me to the final question to both of you. Could you share with us some resource about those initiatives and more generally what you advise us to read or to listen to understand a bit more the e-waste problem, but also some of the solutions that we are trying to put in place worldwide to solve it.Vanessa: Yeah, sure. In general, when it comes to Unitar definitely you can consult the Unitar website where you will have access to all projects we are working at, and to the results of most major projects. Then I think there you would have a very nice overview of what is the current e-waste situation at global level.Furthermore, we will, by the end of the year, publish a new version of the Globally Waste Monitor. It'll be at 2023 edition with an update of the data and with additional information, especially on recyclability. There's also websites that I mentioned before that is the globalewaste.org has been developed in partnership with the International Telecommunication Union and ISWA. Since we are partnering in a global e-waste statistic partnership. Recently, also United Nations Environmental Program and the Carac Foundation joined forces with us to develop the new globally waste monitor. So maybe that website will also provide updates with regards to data.Additional sources for those initiatives : well, I guess they're very dynamic and there are many updates every day and we actually are not, at the moment, compiling all those updates. But I suggest to follow main brands, the pages of main electronic brands worldwide and their sustainability area. There it will be every now and then available information on recyclability and the efforts that the producers do in terms of improving recyclability.Gael: And Jacqueline, do you have some materials as well? Documents, websites?Jacqueline: For me as an entrepreneur I would share obviously our website. It really shows more about our work. But the moment you're revamping, re-editing it to make it more professional, but it has everything and more information about our work and the links to our apps.It really shows about what you're doing and the impact you're creating. Additionally, I would also share the resources about this amazing article I was reading about urban mining. It has the title code : Urban Mining, the relevance of information, transaction costs and externalities. I found it on the Science Direct website.It's a very long one, but the thing I liked about it, it's really shows the data cause they corrected data among 2,500 Swiss respondents and they even did experience with 15,000 employees of Swiss institutions where they were trying to understand and estimate the reason why people do not particularly value their retired funds and how many of them are not willing to give it away, just like that.So it really shows the key output about urban mining and the future out of it. There is also this amazing article, which could be sort of like an example of how many big manufacturers are very keen to come in this journey of being responsible about the resources they're sending to the market and how they are involving in sustainability perspective like there is this also amazing article written by Apple. I hope I'm not doing advertise for them in this podcast, but it's a real amazing one. It's really shows how urban mining is the future. Apple was saying how they will use a hundred percent recyclable cobalt in materials by 2025. This is the approach they're going to take in terms of in industry reading innovation for their recyclable materials, batteries and even secular bulbs. So this is amazing. Actually there is so many amazing article out of there, which is showing how the involvement of different stakeholders in this journey will be exciting very soon.And hopefully the issue of e-waste be resolved no later than 2030 as SDG is aiming for.Gael: Well, thanks so much, Jacqueline, and don't worry. Apple will not give any money to this show so you are free to quote them, to mention them, because I'm not sponsored at all.And if I was sponsored by Apple, I guess it will drain a bit less money on my personal resources to run this show.So feel free to mention everyone you want. You've already mentioned Samsung and Dell, so that, that's perfectly fine. Well, Thanks a lot, both of you, because I've learned a lot of things. That was an episode I really wanted to offer to the audience because we talk that much about e-waste, but it's such on a superficial level and having two of you in the show explaining the data, but also what it meant concretely, the business impact.That was great. So once again, thanks a lot for joining and I know that many of us, we will have learned a lot of things listening to both of you. So thanks a lot again.Jacqueline: Thank you so much. Thank you guys for having us.Vanessa: Thank you. Thank you both and thank you Gael for the invitation and for the opportunity to talk about this important topic.Gael: And that's it. Thank you for listening to Green IO. Make sure to subscribe to the mailing list to stay up to date on your episodes. If you enjoyed this one, feel free to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who could benefit from it. As a nonprofit podcast, we rely on you to spread the word.Last, but not the least. If you know someone who would make a great guest, please send them my way so that we can make our digital word greener one byte at a time.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

What would be the three most harmful website design practices ? What are the actions that you can’t take without the client’s approval ? How could you convince your boss or customers on this sustainable journey ?That’s what we discuss in this episode on sustainable design !Join Gaël Duez to meet : Michael Anderson, Frontend Web Developer at Initiva AB & Founder of Sustainable WWW in Sweden and Sandy Dähnert, experienced designer and host of the Green the Web podcast in Germany.➡️ Sandy and Michael shared their insights on how to face the challenges regarding creating sustainable websites through the lens of Green IT.✅ Don't miss this episode if you want to learn practical advice on how to create sustainable websites and how to convince your clients of the importance of sustainability in website design.❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectSandy Dähnert is the founder of Green the Web, and a freelance UX/UI designer with over 10 years of experience. She is also a social and environmental justice activist who advocates for sustainable web design. Sandy works with designers and companies to create ecologically and socially sustainable digital products that have a positive impact on the regeneration of our planet. Michael Andersen, the founder of Sustainable WWW (World-wide-web) and author of Sustainable Web Design In 20 Lessons, is a problem solver who is passionate about making the internet greener. He has extensive knowledge in both frontend and backend web design and programming, and is committed to incorporating sustainable practices in his work.Green the Web's LinkedIn (Sandy)Michael’s LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green IO website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Sandy and Michael’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeTim Frick’s book "Designing for Sustainability"Tom Greenwood book “Sustainable Web Design”Green IO episode n°8 “Sustainable Design from the trenches”Gerry Mc Govern : World Wide WasteSandy top website exampleSustainablewwwSandy’s Green the web podcast Sandy’s coursesMichael book “Sustainable Web Design In 20 Lessons”Nick Lewis’ repository of lowwcarbon websitesThe Ethical Design Handbook by Trine Falbe, Martin Michael Frederiksen, Kim AndersenCAT communitySandy’s list of recommended links Atomic habitsDigital collageSUX communityTranscriptGael: Hello everyone. In this episode, we go to Gutenberg in Sweden to meet Michael Anderson and to Cologne in Germany to meet Sandy Dänhert, and we will speak about sustainable design, but let me start with a confidence. We, and by we, I'm in the tech folks, whether we are developer ops, dev ops, data engineer, etc.We have it pretty easy when it comes to IT sustainability. Okay. I'll hear you from now screaming from where you are. Are you insane Gael with none of the big cloud providers being fully transparent online, greenhouse gas emissions, the lack of open data and common standards, and the challenge of water and biodiversity where almost everything has to be built and the best practices for green coating not being agreed upon within our industry?Hello, energy consumption of networks. Oh, I forgot to mention the maze of measurement. Okay, okay. You are right. That's not easy, but still. It's less hard than for product folks, whether you think about product owners, product managers, UX or UI designers, research ops, et cetera. Why? Because most of the time we are aligned with our CFO green ops = finops, and better code usually equals less maintenance and for Web developers better Web performance.But when you try to implement sustainable design where it all starts and actually where the impact on reducing the environment footprint, either biggest, you are quite often challenged by business. This catchall term refers to sometime sales, marketing, business developers, or guardians of the PNL. Not that they don't care about sustainability.They do most often quite a lot, but they are focused on the bottom line and fed by -self-proclaimed, per communication, or marketing- gurus with statements like "video is ever seeing, or the messages, the massage, et cetera. In September last year, we had a superb episode with Anne Faubry and Tom Jarrett called Sustainable Design from the Trenches, where they highlighted that this opposition was a myth.I've been wanting to go back on the front line for a while to see how things have evolved, and I'm happy to do it today with two guests who are tooling designers and developers in digital sustainability. Michael, a seasoned Web developer, is the founder of Sustainablewww, a community actively promoting a more sustainable and environmentally friendly internet with resources, wiki and blog articles.He has recently published his first book, Sustainable Web Design in 20 Lessons. Sandy is an experienced designer and a fellow podcastor. She has launched last year the Greener Web Podcast and has recently opened comprehensive online courses on Green UX & UI design. On top of it, she's also an active member of the sustainable UX community.Welcome both of you. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today!Sandy: Hi. Very happy to be here.Michael: I'm happy too. It's an honor.Gael: Same wise. So I'd like to start with my regular question, I would say to both of you, which is : how did you become interested in sustainability in the first place, and most, maybe specifically the sustainability of our digital sector? Sandy, you want to share some thought on it?Sandy: Of course. Sure. Well, I can definitely remember it very well and I was already in my private sphere: more sustainable in what I wear, what I buy, and how I behave and stuff like that and I was doing a lot of volunteer work and I was freelancing at an agency at that time, and they had a meetup coming up and they said "why don't you want to talk about Sustainable Web design in this meetup?"And I was like, sure. And I was thinking only about the social aspects of sustainability in Web design and about accessibility and hypocrisy and like the social justice in design and stuff. And I was going deeper into that. And then at some point I found the topic of ecologically sustainable design. I think probably either Tom Greenwood or Tim Frick, one of the first ones that I stumbled up on.And I was like "What? Why does no one talk about that or very few people talking about it? Why have I never heard of it before?" and it was truly an "Ah!" moment for me, and I went deep, deep, deep into it. It was around Christmas time and usually I take off of work during Christmas and New Year's Eve and stuff like that, but I absolutely took every single minute to try to find more information about the topic for this meetup and loved it since then.Gael: Well, that's super interesting. A meetup, an invitation to a meetup was a key.Sandy: Yeah.Gael: So just, you just have to invite someone and sometimes it triggers a chain reaction, a very positively chain reaction. That's super cool. But what I also like with what you shared is that, opposite to quite a lot of people I've met, and I have to admit, starting with me, you went the other way on the sustainability journey.I hear a lot of people, the majority of the people I've met, they start with the environmental consciousness. We need to take care of the planet, take care of human or actually all living forms on the planet. At some point you realize that climate justice is very strongly connected with social justice and that all this question of inclusivity or let's take the example of AI for instance, it might drag some resources, but there are so many ethical questions on top of it that sometimes environmental for print of AI is maybe only the tip of the iceberg.So we're quite a lot to have shared this road, like starting from the environment toward people, ethics, et cetera. And that's very cool to see that you can also take the road the other way around, starting from an ethical point of view, questioning, I would say, and then going all the way toward environmental without obviously losing the ethical acumen.Sandy: Yeah.Gael: So that's pretty cool?Sandy: No, both is very important definitely for me as well. And I don't know, it just came in this way and I didn't know that green design was a thing and that it's possible to actually be more ecologically sustainable in my UX research, your UX and UI design, and I was like immediately in love with that and felt more of a purpose in my job then.Gael: Than before.Sandy: Yeah. Yeah.Gael: And what about you, Michael? Did you experience a "Aha" moment or was it something more continuous?Michael: It's a little bit, like you were saying, like most most people start out being conscious about the environment and I don't think that I was any exception of that. I grew up in a small city in Denmark. And as a child I was one of those kids, you know, that was always playing outside with my friends.We were building stuff in a forest, playing street hockey and never really spending time, you know, in front of the TV or using technology at all. Kind of truly playing outside. I think that my deep connection with the nature kind of comes from there, you know, growing up in a small city, playing in nature, using the forest as your playground. I think my connection with nature comes from there. One day, I was sitting in Sweden and I was thinking about like, "how do I combine these two big interests of mine?", you know the nature part and the technology part. Because I wanted a way to help the environment in my way. I was unsure if it was gonna be like, feeding programs or going into renewable energy or something.But the best way that I could do it was to find a way to combine these. And that's when I kind of stumbled into this book by Tom Greenwood, a Sustainable Web design. It has been mentioned quite a few times on all of these different podcasts. I'm sure there is a reason for it because this is the book that got me into it all.Like I found this connection between the environment and technology and I would say that's how I got started and became interested in sustainability. From there, it was kind of like a ball rolling, like I had to learn everything from the bottom up. So I invented the D plate over and over and found my own ways of creating sustainable Web design.And then I realized that people should not have the same struggles that I had. So that's why, for example I founded the organization or foundation, sustainable worldwide Web. Gael: So you avoid people to face the same hurdles that you experience starting from almost nothing and that's quite cool because both of you are in a very active sharing mode. Actually that's kind of the first question I wanted to ask you. Rather than listing all the do and don't, I would love both of you to share the top three worst examples of design, harmful design for the environment that you've experienced firsthand.So maybe Sandy, do you want to share you absolute number one?Sandy: Yeah, sure. I love that question. My absolute favorite, number one. Well, there are so many worst cases, but, well, one that was definitely striking for me was one client of mine- as I'm a freelancer. One client of mine came to me with their website and they had so many different kinds of sliders on their website even just on their homepage, they had, I think three different sliders with imagery so they had up to 10 different slides per slider so the ones that you swipe through.And so many studies show that sliders, no one really looks at them all of the users barely see the first or the second slide of the whole carousel thing and they had up to 10 different slides per slider and then I think it was three or four sliders on one page, and that's so much data waste of course, but it's just even also really bad UX. Just wasted space and the first slider was of course, as we had in for a couple of years at the very, very top of the page to set the mood but there was just imagery, like really just images not even a headline, not even an introduction it was just images to kind of set the mood. I got it why they did it. But it was just those 10 different slides in this slider, only imagery. No one knew in the first view port what this website is about. And immediately in the first view port, you have so much data waste and no scaled, no compressed imagery and that was kind of a really fun thing to do because I was like, okay, that's gonna be easy to reduce that carbon emission.Gael: Yeah, obviously. So Michael, she has the slider loathe of card. That's a big one in her hand. So what do you have on yours?Michael: Oh, it's hard to find a specific example because there are so many of them that I've been working with over the years but I guess one of the bad ones that I've had recently was a customer that decided to completely redesign their website.I work in a small company and we focus on custom code. We even made our own CMS system and, and all of these things so everything that we build is custom and we have been working with this client for, I think, almost a decade now or at least my coworkers have. So all of the different versions from the website has been piling up over the years, you know, with unused code and elements for the CMS and now they chose to completely redesign their website and it had to go so fast because here in May, they're going to launch it on a big event, but, Instead of redesigning the website and choose to clean up what they already had : like for example we could have built new elements for the new design so that we would have like a clean cut between the different versions then instead they decided to mix between the versions and take whatever, you know, came from like older versions of this website. So the end product was that we had a completely new design, but now all of a sudden the code base was mixed between versions going almost 10 years back and now we have no idea like which elements are actually being used. We have so much unused code in this project and no way to really figure out how to get rid of it.Gael: So I believe the website was pretty big.Michael: The website is pretty big and pretty heavy. It's out in three languages. So three big replicas of the same website.Gael: Okay, so that's a very good one. So that actually is someone who say, well, let's try to have low maintenance website, or actually high maintenance website, multi versioned, blended website. Yeah. Pretty hard to maintain. I guess, pretty heavy to load. So that's a good one. Sandy, you've got a number two that you'd like to share.Sandy: Yeah, I bet I won't be able to top that one.Gael: That's a nightmare.Sandy: Very heavy. But another example that I'm thinking of is, well, there are several websites that I've seen this with and from clients and not clients of mine that have so many animations and interactions. It's already just too much, way too much and you just come onto the website or application and then you scroll through and you know those websites where content like text and imagery and all kinds of other things are coming in from the sides, from left, from right, from up, from down.Everything seems to be moving and then you have power X effects and then you have other things that are carousels that are auto moving and all kinds of things that are shifting and shaping.Then I had this client of mine that had exactly that. But that's modern and we want to our users to feel like we are up to date and we are cool and all of those things and I was like, "yeah, I know". We want to have this website to be very modern and up to date but definitely try to limit those animations and flying in texts and flying in icons and illustrations. Just calm down a little bit because it's so overwhelming, even for people and for users who don't have cognitive challenges, but for the ones who do have, so to go a little bit into accessibility as well. It's really tough to visit websites like that and animations and interactions they need a lot of scripts so this website was definitely so heavy and to just toning that down and calming a website helped tremendously for the environment, but also for users who might have challenges with it.Gael: With positive business impact at the end? Or could you measure something like conversion rate or I don't know what was the business model of this website?But could you see also some positive business impact with, actually them wanted to be super modern, but maybe the result was the exact opposite because they were chasing away users or potential customers from their website because it was just too visually noisy, I would say.Sandy: Absolutely. We actually did usability testings as well, so talking with users or potential users and letting them go through the website and sharing what they feel about the website, what they like, what they don't like, how they use it.Every single participant in this usability test was like, "well, there's just too many things going on and then all of the times, newsletter banners came in as well", and just things were all over the place and all of the users were like, "No, I would definitely close this website immediately" and once we did the redesign, we actually saw that there was much more of users coming to the page, staying on the page, actually going through the website, and then also converting.Gael: Yeah, so this is really connected with what I say in the introduction that you can align business goals and sustainability goals. Okay, so nightclub website, let's say. That's a pretty big one. Michael, Nightclub website. I love this one. Michael, you've got another one to share?Michael: It's a client that I've been working with for a few years now. Lately we have been focused a lot on optimizing for SEO and that means that I have finally been able to go through the website and optimize in any way possible, you know, like optimize images style. Like everything I could come across.And at the end of this project, the client chose to switch out the hero element on the front page and put in a enormous, one and a half minute long video that would have to autoplay in the beginning and with no controls. So every single user that arrived on this start page was like forced to watch this one and a half minute long video.They actually first allowed me to take that away again once they realized that it really hit their SEO.Gael: I can't imagine this by video instead of this by PowerPoint. That's a website test by video. I love this one as well. Let's not talk about the bandwidth it consumes and the loading time I can imagine and Sandy, what about you? Okay, you've got one last shot.Sandy: Well, we covered quite a bit of the worst cases already. What I often see as well is the topic of storage. I do a lot of UX designs for applications, especially Web applications, business applications, stuff like that. There is so many things that get collected, so much data that could gets collected in so many ways.I've seen websites with three different tracking tools implemented. Lately, there was one business that approached me. They had I think 1000 block articles on their website and they didn't really want to declutter. I was like, but we have to. No one reads block articles from 10 years ago. No one will do that, except if it's like a really brilliant one and then you should keep it but it was not that case.  In business applications, I see so many times that data is collected from different kinds of users and stakeholders in the whole system that we can easily reduce.There's even laws and regulations for that in terms of storing user data when the contract is already ended and things like that you have to delete: the data and you cannot hoard data forever, especially if it's personal user data. But I've seen so many applications that still keep them, and I always say, yeah, we have to get rid of that and it's even legal requirements that we have to do that and there is a lot of data floating around that we can just reduce immediately and that is often forgotten because it's not visible in the front end, but it's very much in the back end. But we still have to do that as well in UX design.Gael: Absolutely. It reminds me so much about the example that Gerry McGovern gave in his book when he worked with the health organization with all these articles. Some of them having wrong information or, you know, not anymore scientifically based information still being on the website because no one was taking care.No, there were no data steward or no data editor anymore. That connects a lot. But Sandy, I must admit that three different tools to measure traffic. That's a lot. I mean, I've met countless websites with two because "you know, we had a migration, but we still want to rely on the old ones." The migration was two years ago.Come on, let it go. But you know, all the specific tool that you've got for a campaign and that the campaign is over for one year, and why do you have this single API call for every page on your website that is completely useless?  That's pretty cool. But like we could call it this one data tsunami turning 180 or point of view now.What I'd love now for both of you is to share one true beautiful example of something that you're super proud of. You know, an inspiring story about a design which had true impact on its environmental footprint.Sandy: All right. One great example would be a design for a brand from the US who does have home and body care products, like shampoo bars and conditional bars and cleaning soap bars and things like that. So very much rooted in zero waste, wasteless production, ethical organic materials in their products and stuff like that.And then we got into talking through common friends and she wanted to redo her website and redesign it, wanted to have a evaluation from my side. Then I discovered that this website was more than, or weighted more than eight megabytes, just the homepage and all kinds of different, other pages below were very, very heavy as well. So the carbon emissions of this full website was just through the roof, and she was very much dedicated to zero waste and reducing her impact in general. When I came to her and said, well, this is the fact of your website, she was immediately stunned by it and shocked and was like, "well, oh, I didn't know that it has an impact".As we probably all know, have faced this conversation at one point.We went into the full redesign of really every single bit. She even has a new technology, a different content management system as well. So we rebuilt everything with also coming in new colors. So it's a little bit less bright, less white for example so we use an off-white in the background to reduce at least a little bit of energy consumption in devices. We use different colors that are more vibrant and darker colors here and there as well. We use a lot less data heavy elements, whether that's imagery or videos. If they are introduced or implemented, they have actually a purpose and are there for better usability and finding the best product possible for the user but also really thinking again about the user journeys, because every single click means more data consumption means more carbon emissions.So really thinking about what are the best ways to guide a user through this website without having to go back and forth. Plus, there are so many cool assets in there that are about green art delivery, so green shipping or donations made with every single purchase. As well as having little communication snippets of if you buy this shampoo bar, you will reduce six plastic bottles, so you will eliminate six plastic bottles that you would have to buy if you don't use this shampoo bar.Things like that, like those small changes that also educate the user in a very gentle and loving way of, "yes, this is a good step for you as a user", to also contribute to a positive change for the environment. All kinds of little bits and pieces we put into this website that I really love caring more about also the ethical and organic parts of the products. It's even has a choice with at least a couple of products to get it with packaging or without packaging. So even reducing more of materials. So there's many, many things in there that I actually love and enjoy with this project.Gael: It seems that consistency was key here, like your client was ready into this sustainable mindset. About just a side question about the colors, because I've read a lot of debate about dark mode versus, you know, not that many scientific studies are backing it, but we do have some, but in specific context and the colors, et cetera.What is your stand on it?Sandy: Well, I do think that whatever choice we make, even if it's just a small contribution, I would like to consider it. I know there is not enough studies and like really diverse studies about color and its effect on energy and battery life and consumption. But I see a couple of studies and discussions around that reducing the brightness of colors does help for all edited place at least. So for example, I started to use less bright white as background colors and just sing a little bit of more tone down of white does help at least a little bit. If I do it in every single website, and especially in business applications that are used for full days every single day of a week for hundreds of employees and just thinking about how can we scale it up it doesn't all have to be in dark mode, especially that's not accessible for every single person out there. But just trying to find more ways of implementing colors in a creative way that might use a little bit less brightness of, at least for OLED displays.Gael: And what about you, Michael? What will be your most inspiring use case that you'd like to share?Michael: First of all, I would like to say Sandy, that's a very inspiring customer. You been working with there. I wish I had customers like that. I would say I'm more like the person who works behind the curtains because most of the clients that I'm working with is not really that interested in the environment yet I can only push them that far.So most of the stuff that I do behind the curtains where they don't see things. But I guess the story I would like to share was was one of our big clients that we have been working with for many years. They finally decided to optimize their website because they were focusing on SEO and that gave me the opportunity to go in and focus on image optimization.I was, for example, making it so that if they were adding images into like a card list element where the images would have like, somewhat a fixed size. Then on the back end I would automatically resize these images and convert them to WebP so that even though they were uploading images on like two to three megabyte, it would automatically scale down and create like an optimized version.I was also doing stuff like removing jQuery and going directly into plain JavaScript, and we were moving the whole website to a green host located in Sweden which is known for having more renewable energy. We were simplifying the code base, the CSS like removing code that was duplicated. So for example, in CSS it's very easy to write styling that is overriding each other and goes again and again from element to element. So these were some of the things that we were focusing on. We were also optimizing funds and trying in as many places as possible to put in system funds because that would reduce the data that each user would have to load.And of course, also do stuff like reduce animations and only use them in places where they would actually improve the understanding of what was happening.Gael: Well, Michael, you are an amazing guest because that was my next question for both of you. What can you do on your own without asking the permission to no one?You know, that kind of a debate of that hear quite a lot between developers or designers version A being: I cannot do that much if not anything because I don't have the support of my cto, cpo, the guilds, or whoever is in charge or defining how I should code and design things in my organization.Versus option B being: well, you know, sustainability is a bit like security, you code security by design, we should do sustainability by design and there are a lot of things that we can do just implementing good craftmanship without asking the permission to anyone. And obviously you listed quite a lot of examples as you say, according you working behind the curtains that things that you've done without needing your customer's approval. So thanks a lot because that that was really something that this fine line, depending on the context is really something that I believe is at the core of the thinking of many people wanting to do things in a more sustainable way and send a" do you want to add something?"What would be like the top actions, the top ideas that someone should implement as a good craftman without asking the permission to anyone, you know, being in steel mode, I would say?Sandy: Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, I absolutely agree that we can do so many things already without anyone else noticing that is coming to more green design and ecological sustainability. Well, I always find, or what I struggled with most in the very beginning was that I felt like I can only design very minimalist websites now and applications and online shops, and I have to reduce everything and I cannot implement anything that's beautiful and colorful and with images or anything that's nice.I absolutely found that's not true at all. I can still be very creative as a designer, even with ecologically sustainable design. I always think that I can even be more creative because I stopped from just thinking about this full width image on top of a page, but actually thought in different ways of how can I make this aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly and green.So probably the first things that I changed without anyone noticing is the use of images of having even the permission slip to not use any images at all if they don't fit the brand or the purpose or the content of using images differently in a more, yeah, just blurring image edges or cutting off image edges and really using them with a purpose and not just for, "Hey, here's everything that I found in the database of this brand".The second would probably be the use of text and fonts and all of what comes with that and even designing with fonts and designing with text is a really cool way of reducing data if it eliminates other data, heavy components such as videos or images. Plus definitely a cool thing that I love is what we already talked about colors and of trying to find new ways of selecting different kinds of colors that I haven't thought about before, that they actually do have an impact even though it might be smaller than imagery.But it can still have so those are things that no one realizes that I'm actually doing them. And just being a good UX designer helps a lot as well, because then you think about the user journeys throughout every single website application or online shop and not complicating digital products is a very huge part in graining the Web because every single click counts so really reducing that and just saying, "Hey, we're just doing good". UX is very helpful as well.Gael: Yeah, absolutely. Perfection is rich when there is nothing less to remove, not to add. And, you know, it remind me the statement that you can do beautiful things in a sustainable way. It really reminds me the work, but I guess, you know, Nick Lewis' work on the low carbon repository, this list of "Yeah, I think it's a great initiative because it highlights that you can design beautiful websites, straight to the point, et cetera, in a very environmentally friendly way". I really love his work and I think it's a great source of inspiration like, you know, especially when you talk with a user or even more important a customer or a client. And now going the opposite way, what are the actions that you believe you cannot really take without the support of your boss or some kind of support within your organization?When and where, do you need help as a designer or a Web developer?Michael: I guess when dealing with the website design that is like some of the major changes that you can do is definitely something you would have to take up with the client first. Like what Sandy mentioned, if you get a permission slip to actually remove images from the website or Web page or if you decide to start out with a dark mode design and let the user switch over to a light mode, like all of these implementations is definitely something that I think you would have to run by the client to hear what they think first.Gael: And how would you convince them or try to convince them?Michael: I would definitely do it a bit like some Greenwood test: don't focus so much on the environmental side since most companies focus on the bottom line and the SEO. So try to find like a combination between the two. Of course, it's okay to mention for them that you are doing something great for the environment and all of this, but I don't think that it should be the selling point of it.I can't remember if it was Tom or if it was Gerry McGovern that once said that all of these sustainable implementation shouldn't even have to be mentioned. It should be something that just comes natural to us as Web designers and developers.Gael: I recall it was Tom, but sorry Gerry if I got this one wrong.And Sandy, what would be the actions where you truly believe that this cannot be done on your own?Sandy: A couple of things cannot be done if you are in a very big corporate environment where there is a huge universe of digital products and you really want to shift all of them. Then you just have to talk with colleagues and with business about actually introducing a more data reduced, but also environmentally positive design throughout all of digital products.So that's about the sheer amount of digital products that there could be in a corporate environment. But also what I usually do or love to do is designing or creating non-human personas, really talking about environmental stakeholders that we effect in a negative way with our digital products, but also can effect in a positive way.So really thinking about nature, about certain ecosystems, about animals, about oceans, rivers, and all kinds of things that we have an impact on. I can do that for myself just to center myself more into the environmental aspect in my work. But of course if I do that with the client or with the company, and really all centering on environmental stakeholders and non-human personas does help a lot.And when I do it and people are open to it, it absolutely affects their way of business and how they do business as well, not just design itself for a digital product, but the whole business. So that is, for example, one thing if I want to, in bigger corporate corporations really want to hone in on the user journeys and reducing click pass and therefore energy consumption and carbon emissions.Then I can do user journey mappings. Of course, if there's huge digital products, I have to do that with the team as well, and I can do it without mentioning.Ecological sustainability, so it's just a typical UX method. But I can also introduce sustainability within user journey maps and talk about every single step and their ecological impact throughout a user journey.So yeah, that's of course things that I then have to discuss with the team or with the client or with the company. So those are the bigger things that need to be done. Other things are the hosting provider. I cannot just choose one and say: "you have to take this one". Or talking about tracking tools, as we talked about before, I can of course recommend something, but it's absolutely their choice of then doing so. What I often have as a freelancer, I do a couple of projects for a very long time and a couple of years supporting certain projects, but sometimes it's just a one time thing and you set it up. It's a new design, it's a redesign, everything's good and ecologically sustainable. Cool. But then you visit this website or application a year or two later, and then you see that there's new imagery, for example, on a website that is suddenly, again very big and very heavy, and you're like" no".And then you write an email about, "Hey, can you compress that?" And still think about the workflow of data reduction and stuff. So you don't have everything in your own hands, especially if the daily workflows just are different for the people you are working with. So you have to sometimes remind people to scale and compress and export in the right format and things like that.Gael: Now you shared a lot about do/ don't depending the context, flying under the radar or on the other hand, convincing your customers in raising awareness. I'd like the three of us to take a step back and very simple question, what is the trend? What did you notice this last years in our industry? Are you optimistic about a way towards more sustainability as Chris Adams like to say "a fossil free internet by 2030 or not that much?"Michael: Over the years, I've seen many trends. Well, but honestly, most of them has been for the worst. What I mean is that like we see more and more of these heavy images videos, unused code power, hungry themes and and such on websites and like whenever I personally have talked to people about this, I've heard comments such as, "it doesn't really matter because, you know, the internet is so fast".So 200 kilobyte image or a two and a half megabyte image, it doesn't really matter.I have to go in and explain all of these, things like geographical reach, making the websites faster for even people living in places where they have like slow internet connections, all of these things.I definitely think like as the internet speed becomes faster, the trend is going for the worse. That is what sustainable website is trying to turn around again, so that we can focus on creating lighter and faster websites that are more accessible, has a greater reach to people just like we used to do back when the internet was very slow, everyone had like a 50 K modem, if you remember those.Everyone was really focusing on building sustainable websites because an image could take minutes to load. And that's kind of like where I believe that we need to go back again. Instead of focusing on building these animation heavy image, heavy video, heavy websites, we need to focus on making it even faster.But I believe that we can, and we will. We just need to get this information out to more people. We need to get more people on board building these sustainable solutions. And if we can like spread awareness of how much the internet pollutes, then we will open the eyes for more people and change the culture of what is happening right now.Gael: Okay, I got it. So it's a battle of technological trend versus ecological awareness, I would say. Okay. Fair point. And I do remember the sound of the 60, not 60, sorry, 56 K bottom. But you know, there is less and less people who know what we talk about when we mention them. That's quite funny. And Sandy, how do you foresee the future and what other trends that you've noticed recently?Sandy: Well, I'm very hopeful. I've seen in the last years that I have had an eye on this bubble, this niche, that there's more and more designers and developers caring for it and actually talking about it. There's much more discussion, and I know we are still at the very beginning of this topic, and I know that there are so many more things to come, especially when we also talk about UX research and information architecture and stuff like that, that I have high hopes that many more cool things are coming along to help us to design in a greener and more sustainable way.And I love that there's so many more designers and developers joining and talking about it, because if there's more designers talking about it, then actually companies and brands and clients are seeing that it is even a thing. Before there was just too few people talking about it. Now there's more that it actually attracts companies to think about it and then actually saying, "Hey, we need employees who are specialized in it or clients searching for freelancers who have more ecological sustainability in their spectrum of work."  There is a cool way of really broadening this horizon on all different levels, on designers and developers levels, but also in companies and for brands. I see definitely an optimistic outlook, but at the same time, I absolutely agree that we have to fight the new generation of very short form video based content as well as artificial intelligence tools. We do have to fight for more ecological sustainability even more, because there's so much data, data heaviness out there in different forms now than it has been in 10 years or 20 years ago. But I am very hopeful that we will get that.Gael: Me too. This is what I get up every morning.Michael: I just wanna point out to my comment on it, that it was definitely not supposed to be meant as like a dark, pessimistic version. I am definitely optimistic about it. As I see it, so many people around the world right now don't know that data pollutes. And I think that is the problem right now because we see so many people interested and involved in the environment, you know, trying to remove plastic and all of these acts that leads us in the right direction.But these people, they have been made aware that we have a climate crisis right now, but so many people still don't know that every single kilobyte or megabyte pollutes because of electricity consumptions and devices being built, like all of these things that both Tom and Gerry McGovern talks about.Well, what I was trying to explain with my comment is that, we need to talk about the problem and make more people aware. Even people outside of Web design and Web development, like even the regular website owner needs to be aware of this because we all have a responsibility in this.Like the data we pollute is the data that we need to maintain and remove ones, no matter longer valid.Gael: Yeah, absolutely. You're right. This is what I'm less shy now reaching out to people on social networks or in conference or whatever, saying: "Hey, by the way, are you aware of climate change, sustainability, et cetera, and I'm like, "Oh, you're in the tech industry, you are IT folks or designer? Are you aware of the environmental footprint?" No. Boom. You should listen to the podcast. You should read this book. Or you should join a digital collage workshop, you know, to raise awareness, et cetera. I used to be a bit shyer. Like, I don't want to bother them. They must know. They must know. It's so obvious, but the truth ? It's not. So now I'm straightforward. Actually, some people listening to the show for the very first time might have been connected quite recently to me, with me dropping a few lines saying: "Hey, by the way, you know, this is the podcast, maybe can be useful, use it."If not, no big deal. I'm not here to sell you anything. But yeah, I welcome all the new listeners, obviously. Which leads me to the last question about resources. So obviously you folks created quite very useful resources. I'd like both of you to mention them again. And on top of that, what would be all the resources that you would advise people to know more about sustainable design, sustainable Web dev or even sustainability in general?Michael: Yeah, I wrote this book "sustainable Web Design in 20 Lessons". And did it to give people a chance to get into sustainable Web design without having to invent the DPL over and over. After reading some Greenwood books on sustainable Web design, I was like fully into what the problem was, but I was hungry for solutions, things that I could like take to my website directly to make it better. And since I didn't really find, you know, books out there directly attacking this problem, I decided to create my own from these experience that I build up. So, for example, I talk briefly about what sustainable Web design is and what a carbon footprint is.But it's not the main focus of the book. The main focus is to give the reader practical courses, actions that they can take to their website right away. So I talk for example about green Web posting CDNs and how they add security layers to your website can reduce the carbon footprint.I talk about page weight budgets and death of content. You know, our responsibility of the data that we create. I talk about accessibility, which is both meant as accessibility in you know, creating websites that are available to people no matter their ability or geographical reach.I talk about lightweight and minimalistic design, how colors for example can change the energy consumption. So, for example a blue has a shorter wavelength which makes the energy consumption a little bit bigger compared to a green and a red. It doesn't really make a huge difference like it does switching from a gray Web posting to green Web posting.But after reading the book Atomic Habits, I figured out that if we take just 1% and we improve that again and again and again, we will eventually have the best version of the product. And that's what I'm trying to do with this. I'm finding all of these small things and putting them into lessons that both Web designer, developer, or even like the non-tech savvy website owner can use.Funny story, right after writing this book, I gave it to my mom. And she is not into technology at all. Like, she's that type of person who ask my dad every time that she needs to do something on her phone or when the TV is tricky to use. And after reading the book, she came to me and she said, now I finally understand what you're doing.And you actually wrote it in a language that is relatively easy to understand, even for someone like me who's not into technology. And that's what I wanted to do.Gael: That, that's a very big compliment.Michael: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I I was very happy when she said that, because that is exactly what I was trying to do, like create a book that would be easy to consume for everyone, cuz to create a sustainable worldwide Web, we have to include everyone, even the website owners that does not get help from Web designers and Web developers.Gael: And do you have any other resources, one or two that you'd like to share with the audience?Michael: Yeah. I actually have three. I will definitely recommend people to read some Greenwood's book sustainable Web Design. It gave me so much knowledge about sustainable Web design and what the problem is. So for everyone who wants to get into it, it's a really, really good starter book. I'll also recommend worldwide Waste from Gerry McGovern.That gives you really, really good insight into how much everything pollutes. Like just to pick an example, you know, that images pollutes more than words. You normally say that a picture says more than 1000 words, but in reality, when you're dealing with Web design, you can describe things in so greater details just by using words. As I recall it, I remember Gerry McGovern mentioning that about 150,000 words is equal to the size of one image, if I'm not totally wrong.And that should kind of put things into perspective for you, that sometimes words might be better ways to describe things. The last resource that I want to recommend is the Ethical Designed Handbook by Trine Falbe. That was definitely also a great book for me to read because instead of only focusing on the environment and optimization, you also focus on the user journey.Like Web websites has to be ethical, honest and focus on the best of users. Instead of focusing only on creating a sale by scarcity or whatever tricks in the book that comes up and is used today.Gael: Well, thanks a lot, Michael. And yeah, both Tom and Gerry's books are very often mentioned on the show, but it's always a pleasure to put them in the show notes and to have more people sharing and understanding things. Thanks. So thanks a lot for that. Sandy, do you want to add other resources?Sandy: Yeah, sure. Well, I definitely recommend the ones that Michael said, and usually I also mention this podcast as a resource to check out. Definitely always recommended as well as Michael's book. I was honored to actually happen to read it already. I'm almost through it. It's really cool to read and a lot of amazing and interesting things in there that I can still learn about, especially the technical parts because I'm not a developer. So well done, Michael.I definitely would recommend my podcast as well. I love doing that, it's also about green and social sustainability.In, especially UX and UI design. So I'm more into that side of like user research and design rather than development, what you both do brilliantly and I really like the sentence that Michael mentioned earlier about hungry for solutions, which is why I do or share a lot of solutions and things for others to have an easier entrance into the topic of it.So I do have on my website also linked templates, for example, for non-human personas or for user journey mappings. So it's easier to not just think about, "okay, I could do that, but how could I do that?" But actually just using it for free. So there's templates on my website for things like that. There is even a block as well. As you mentioned in the very beginning, I recently, two weeks ago I launched a course about an online course about green UX and UI design for others to have an easier entrance to not just guess and read blog posts through like hundreds of blog posts in a year, and then still not knowing what to actually do in what order and what there can be done in every single design process. So in the course it's about user research, environmental stakeholder research, the information architecture, the UI design, as well as the development handoff. So there's all kinds of things throughout a typical design process for a UX and UI designers. To step out of the guest work and to actually get into the real work and what I absolutely included as well what can we do as designers ourselves, without anyone noticing, but also what are options for us, especially in greening e-commerce, raising awareness and finding solutions that we need to have business approval with it as well. Those are out there for you to check out if anyone is interested in that. Well, I have a full resource recommendation list on my website and the ones Michael mentioned before are on that as well even also the Ethical Design Handbook, I really love that one as well.I'm very much into communities as I know Gael you're as well. For example, the climate action tech community, the sustainable UX community of feeling like there's actually other people who care about the same things as I do, and to not feel lost or to not feel alone of I'm just one single person that does something about it, but there's actually others and I can actually ask them about feedback or about like, just answers to questions that I have and especially if I or you don't have people around you that are in that mindset already, it helps tremendously. So I'd definitely check communities out as well.Gael: Thanks a lot, Sandy, for sharing all these resources and especially mentioning the climate action tech community. My little darling, or actually not that little darling community not that little community because several thousands of techies are into this one. And once again, a big thank you to both of you. That was great to have you on the show, sharing all those insights, playing the games of the worst cases when it comes to website designs, but also all those very practical tips. So thanks a lot for joining and I hope that both your podcast and your book and your courses and all the great materials that you give away will be very successful in that it will help to raise awareness among many, many people around the world.So thanks a lot.Sandy: Thank you so much for inviting us. It was really cool. Love it.Michael: Thank you very much. It has been a wonderful time. ❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

Can you deploy an impactful Sustainable IT strategy under market pressures? What if metrics are not there? What if your customers do not care? .. To get feedback on these questions, join Gaël Duez to meet two great leaders : Drew Engelson, Starbuck’s Director of Engineering in Seattle and Dominique Bruinier, OCTO's Chief Operating Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer in Paris.✅ Yes, raising awareness and training teams is key. No eco-design is not more expensive. Yes, many side-benefits can be leveraged on the road to sustainability. ➡️ Dominique and Drew gratefully shared their experiences and their views on the do and the don't when implementing sustainability in a Tech company.❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectDrew is the Director of Engineering at Starbucks, responsible for overseeing the engineering teams that manage the Starbucks Rewards and Mobile Order and Pay platforms. With a strong background in software engineering, cloud, devsecops, and architecture, Drew has worked with numerous leading brands such as National Geographic, PBS, Marvel, Gannett/USA TODAY, Zipcar, and The White House. Drew believes in responsible use of technology and optimizing the digital carbon footprint to achieve planet-positivity.Dominique is the Director of Operations at OCTO, with an added role as Director of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), where she actively works to drive necessary transformations in the digital industry, tackling rising greenhouse gas emissions and social inequalities. As a long-time advocate and a woman in tech, she puts all her skills and expertise towards causes that are close to her heart. OCTO is one of the best places for her to bring her convictions to life. Drew's LinkedInDominique’s LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green IO website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Drew and Dominique’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeCloud Carbon FootprintAWS well-designed architecture frameworkB Corp certificationParis climate agreementAWS ReinventAWS sustainable dashboardRGESN in English (beta version)Climate action tech communityTom Greenwood's Sustainable Web design book Richard Hanna - Techologie podcastMOOC from INRIA : The environmental impact of digital technologiesL’octet vert - podcast de Tristan NitotDigital CollageTranscriptGael: Hello everyone. In this episode we go to Seattle to enjoy, a Latte and Paris to enjoy a coffee. Why a latte? Because we meet Drew Engelson, Starbucks director of engineering, whose teams deliver the Starbucks reward in mobile order and pay platforms. That will be an understatement to say that Drew is a well known voice in tech sustainability.Having been a vocal advocate for Green IT in many conferences, reinvent not being the least, that will be an understatement also to say that we've been trying to have him on the show for quite a long time- more than a year- to be honest, since we connected via the CAT community. So I'm delighted to have him today.And why will we enjoy a cafe? Well, because in Paris you can enjoy delicious ones. So we have Dominique Buinier with us today. She's the partner in crime of Meriem Berkane OCTO's CTO, who initially should have joined us but had to cancel for personal reasons. Meriem was kind enough to introduce me to Dominique who has an amazing track record.And OCTO, a very well non-digital services provider in Paris and beyond. They are the organizers of the USI conferences. OCTO is also among the early advocate of agility in France and sustainability. Since several years without talking too much about it. An interesting choice we will discuss later. Dominique is a software engineer by training who graduated from ENSTA school.She has held various IT expert position in OCTO and then management once, and she's currently OCTO's Chief Operating Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer. She is the one who led the B Corp certification project successfully. Why having these two great leaders on the show today? Well both have shared the same challenge.How to successfully deploy an ambitious IT sustainability strategy despite being companies under huge market pressure, from clients for OCTO and from financial markets. for Starbucks. I am eager to share their experience to gain valuable insights on the do and the don't. So welcome both of you. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.Drew: Thank you for having us, and it's great to meet you, Dominique.Dominique: Yes. Thank you for having us. Nice to meet you, Drew, too.Gael: So my first question is the usual one. How did you become interested in sustainability and more specifically in the sustainability of our digital sector in the first place? Dominique, would you share a bit with us your journey?Dominique: Yes, sure. Well actually it started three years ago when we decided to run for the B Corp certification. At that time we were not measuring anything at OCTO, I mean, on a environmental point of view. So we decided to start to measure our carbon footprint and at that time we chose to do the measurement on the free scopes.And then it was an emotional shock, I can say, when we got the results because more than 50% of our footprint was related to our core business. That means related to the digital services and the digital products that we design and develop for our clients. Our day-to-day job, the purpose of the company is precisely what was the most bad I would say, on an environmental point of view.And this carbon footprint was really, really the first time when I got interested in digital sustainability. I would say.Gael: And before that, were you into the sustainability field?Dominique: Yeah.Gael: Drew?Drew: For me, it started as a very personal journey in my personal life. My family does a lot of things. I tried to be good for the environment. You know, we'd drive electric cars, we were early adopters of that. We had put solar panels on our house. We'd try our best to use as, create as little waste as possible.But at work, I felt like I wasn't being able to meet that specific or scratch that itch. Starbucks has a sustainability team with a chief sustainability officer, and they do so many things that help Starbucks be a a better organization and a better steward for our planet. And in fact, they have a whole history of sustainability investments going back to 1985 when they started offering the first 10 cent reusable cup discount.But for me, the work that I was doing in the work my team was doing, felt slightly disconnected from those broader goals. So I spent some time thinking about how can I make it more relevant to me and my team and realized that, and should have been obvious that we built software and we run all of our software in the cloud right now at least for my platform.And those cloud services consume a lot of energy. So there is definitely a direct correlation to the work that we do and the carbon that is admitted as a result of that. And I thought to myself, well :how do we go about measuring the impact of our software? And that really kind of kicked off the journey, which for me also started about three years where we started trying to figure out how to measure the impact of our software and then see how we can do even better.Gael: That's interesting to notice that you've started both around three years ago, Dominique, from the B Corp certification. And Drew more on let's line what the sustainability team overall in Starbucks is trying to achieve, how as software engineers we can do our part. So my first question for you, maybe Drew would be, how did you onboard teams?You had like this kind of personal momentum, I want to align things better between my personal life and what I do at work, but were you the only one? How did you create a momentum?Drew: Well, it definitely started with within my own teams but first educating myself and working with some of my peers to understand how we're using our cloud resources and where we have opportunities for using fewer resources. Measurement became an initial problem. So before we can actually measure, it was important to come up with some methodology for determining how my team or anyone else's team is doing, are we doing good?Where do we have opportunities for improvement? So I started with my own team. I started educating, you know, my leads, my managers on ways that we should think about our software. And as engineers and as really, which is our engineering, is our craft, I believe strongly that it's our duty to be the best engineers possible.And that can't be done while ignoring the environmental impact of the software that we create. So, I did start with me and others who were interested. I've met other groups within Starbucks and people who are as passionate. It really is a sort of a ground up effort, you know, sharing ideas.Sharing wins, sharing opportunities, sharing stories that we learn from other communities that we're involved with, and that's where it continues to go.Gael: Well, that's very interesting, especially because you started right from the start with the metrics question, and we will come back to this point later, but Dominique, was it the same grownup approach who took place at OCTO or was it more a top-down decision from CEO or the board or whoever?Dominique: Yes, it was a top down decision at the very beginning. Actually once we did the carbon footprint and. Then we explained it to the board of the company and the board decided right away to meet the Paris climate agreement and to reduce the carbon footprint. And that was the first decision.So a very top down decision. And then we showed the same result. I mean the carbon footprint results to different teams and it was voluntary to come to those meetings and we had a lot of people coming. That was really, really interesting. And then we, as a top down decision, we asked the teams to train everyone on IT eco-design. Eco-design was the very first step that was needed for us. At that time, we were pretty much lucky because we had around 10 people very passionate about that and with a very strong expertise. But those 10 people, the previous years that they barely couldn't do anything with their expertise. But then starting with our top down decision, we ask those 10 people to help the different teams to build the necessary trainings and to start to deliver the trainings.And for us, we had to change almost everything. That means the way we design, the way we develop, the way we do machine learning, the way we choose the cloud providers, how we design architecture, and so on and so on. Just like Drew said, we do craft also, and so we really want to improve ourselves. So I would say that training was our way to onboard teams under sustainability tracks. For example, for the last two years when we do have a new hire, they spent one day on sustainable IT within the first month when they joined the company. And at the end of this day, we show them all the trainings that they can have and they can follow as many trainings as they want.It's kind of open bar green trainings. It's very important for us that if they want to train, if they want to improve themselves, they can do it. So this is one radical thing. I think it's the more radical one because other things, we are still on the process. That means that, for example, the designers, the product owners, we try to have them challenge the roadmaps, the story maps of their clients. Sometimes, they can do that. Sometimes they just don't all allow themselves to do that. So it is really where we want to go, but it's not that easy.Gael: And what are the main challenges you face? Because that, that's very interesting because OCTO, you develop things both for internal use, but also mostly for your clients. And what are the main push bags or the main hurdles that you face with your clients when you want to implement eco design or some new architectural choices, for instance, that are more sustainable, that would reduce some environmental impact?Dominique: First of all, the clients think that it's gonna cost them more to do eco-design because their teams are not trained because they don't really know about that. So most of the time they think it will cost much more. So this is clearly the first misunderstanding and when we talk to clients right now, our clients that are not really the French tech ecosystem. They are traditional clients, I would say. Sustainable IT is not an issue for them so far. It is really the very, very beginning. So it's pretty much difficult. So what we are trying to do right now is to switch to, I would say, eco-design by design.That means that we don't ask any permission to develop like that. It is just the way we do the code.Gael: Well, that's very interesting. This move like by default you do things in the green way, in a sustainable way, and you don't really ask permission for it. A bit like you would design things to be secure by default and security by default or that kind of approach.Dominique: Exactly.Gael: And Drew, you work mostly for internal clients, I would say, you have like millions of users of your platform. But I would say the product people are the one deciding with you what to implement, what features, et cetera, et cetera. Did you have the same hurdles? Did you face the same difficulties regarding adoption of a more sustainable way of delivering products, especially digital products?Drew: First of all, I love that word, eco-design and I think design is actually the easiest time to think about the environment. Cause it tends to be a process of elimination and simplification. You know, do I really need that fancy animation on this webpage? You know, and it's easier to not build it.It's cheaper to not build that fancy animation. So for me, you know, we had already built a lot of our platform before we started thinking about the sustainability angle to it. And had already done a lot of optimization just for cost optimization purposes, and some of the early understanding of how sustainability and how our environmental impact relates to other metrics, we have easier access to, like cost. You know, we were able to look back in time at some of our cost optimization efforts and saw that it very strongly correlated to lower carbon emissions. And that was really added fuel to the fire to continue to look for those opportunities. And really show that being greener is not more expensive in most cases.In fact, I don't think any cases we had, we've made any sort of sacrifices to the capabilities of the platform. It's really how we went about building those capabilities and further optimizing them over time.Gael: So that's interesting because to wrap it up. The two main issues you might face with your clients, whether they are internal clients or external clients, is this misconception of greener equal more expensive. Where actually it's more greener equals cheaper. Whether it's because you design less stuff, so you produce, you deliver less stuff or because you optimize also your costs, et cetera, et cetera.It all goes back to raising awareness that you first need your customers or your clients to understand that there is something at stake. And otherwise they will not make the first move. So that's very interesting that both of you, you shared in with a very different angle the same challenge and eventually you say, well, that's all wrong, actually, greener is most of the time cheaper, not all the time, but most of the time cheaper.Is that correct?Drew: Yeah, and I could add, I mean, it's very simple math when you're running in the cloud, right? The more efficient your application, the simpler it, the fewer cloud resources you would need to deliver that application directly correlates to lower cost. So that's kind of easy math in my opinion.Gael: So both of you, you mentioned tools. Before we discuss a bit more specifically, which tools did you use? What are the hurdles you might have faced using them? I'd like to go back to the question of metrics because the very first thing you started Drew with your team was trying to measure things and what triggered the decision to go full speed on sustainability.On OCTO side, was this carbon audit ?And the huge impact that was created by designing and developing software services? What are the main issues you faced with metrics and what are the metrics you decided to track?Dominique: Maybe I can start if you want, because it may seem weird as a consultancy company, but actually., I don't really care about metrics. And I don't really care if our metrics are really accurate or not. For example just to make my explanation more clear. When we started our first carbon carbon footprint, we knew it was gonna be wrong.We knew that we were going to make lots of mistakes. What we knew at that time is that the real measurement should be way higher, way higher. For us, it doesn't matter because the main learning was not the level of our footprint, but the main learning was that we needed deeply to change how we were going to do IT services.So for us, it was clear that it was going to be a change management program. So it's kind of weird, but metrics for us so far. I'm saying, so far, is not the key point.Gael: Drew, how much are you aligned with this approach?Drew: I do have a similar opinion. I mean, the very first question I asked myself is, you know, what is the environmental impact of the system? Our teams are responsible for delivering to this world. And I had no idea how to answer that question. So I started looking for metric. What metrics do I need to be tracking?What tools exist? There were very few answers to those questions you know, three plus years ago. But I generally knew, you know, just common sense tells me that you know, if I consume fewer cloud resources, I'm kind of really having a lower environmental impact. It just, to me, was a sort of a common.A statement. So really decided to build my own tool at first. And we did this during a hack week, a few years ago, just over about two days. You know, I've been thinking about it for a long time, but took this hack week opportunity to go build something with some other engineers and partner with our sustainability.And I asked the sustainability team how they account for my team's carbon footprint. You know, and as you might expect for such a large organization, it's a very broad approach. You know, they have tables and mappings and things like that, but one interesting thing I learned at that time was Starbucks technology as a whole, accounts for roughly maybe 1% of the total carbon footprint of Starbucks. And you know, over 20% is just kind of the dairy that's used in our stores and that whole supply. So the reality is that because it wasn't a big target, there wasn't a lot of, you know, detail I can pull out of it. So I thought, you know, how do I go create my own metrics and, you know, ultimately said, okay, well I'll look at our cost that's directly correlated to the number of resources I'm using or our compute hours and for various services and built like a mapping between those metrics I have easy access to from our cloud dashboards. Apply some algorithm to it and, and come up with a number. Right? And I did that and we created, you know, a chart over time. And in addition to that also thought about building a recommendation engine. So not only what is the carbon footprint, which by the way, at that time was a complete wild guess.Accuracy was not my goal, but starting somewhere was my goal. The recommendation engine are things that I just intuitively felt: if we did these things, we would consume fewer resources, we would be more efficient, and we would therefore have a lower carbon footprint on our platform. And just started listing out a whole bunch of those things.And then came up with ways I can detect, well, am I doing those things or not? What opportunities do we have for improvement? For example, do we have greatly underutilized resources just sitting out there in the cloud, doing that a whole lot, could they be running on smaller businesses? Can we turn them off and move those workloads elsewhere and more densely pack and get higher utilization of our platform?So those were sort of common sense things, and in the end, those are really the things that are most important to me. What areas do we have for just improving what we do? Not necessarily actual number.Gael: Coming back to the metrics. I think that's maybe the most interesting aspect of our discussion so far, because you are both trained engineers, you are people working in a life of data. You put for accuracy, precise metrics, et cetera, and both of you, you come back with the, the same knowledge sharing, which is "we don't have that much accurate data when it comes to the environmental footprint.It's getting better and better, which far from being something that much actionable, but we don't care. Because the trend, the momentum is way more important than the accuracy of the metrics." I think that's very interesting because it's very easy to push back for change, asking for more reliable metrics.So do you agree, both of you, that metrics, it's okay to start with good enough or even garbage metrics if they are consistently immersed and that over time it helps improve and that all of their CTO, all of their CPO, all their head of engineering, they should, you know, cut a slack on the accuracy of carbon footprint and many other environmental footprints and start moving forward.Is it an accurate way to wrap up what you've just both said.Dominique: From my point of view, yes.Drew: I'd agree with that, although I would also be quite happy if I did have accurate data.Dominique: Sure. But we just don't want to spend time on that because we prefer to spend time on what you've said, the momentum, how you change the way people take their good sense decisions.Gael: Hmm.Dominique: Day to day work.Drew: Yes, I would completely agree with that statement. And we are seeing better data coming from various sources. Our cloud providers are attempting now to create you know, a dashboard for their customers, to provide, access to carbon footprint metrics, which is something that really wasn't possible even just a few years ago.Gael: How do you feel about those metrics? Starting to arrive and starting to be available. Are they good enough? How much? You mentioned in both of you, you work a lot with cloud providers, so the big three obviously, is it getting better or is it still a long road to go?Drew: I'd say yes and yes. Like it's certainly a long way to go. But something is better than nothing. You know, I was fortunate enough when I presented at AWS Reinvent, I think it was maybe two years ago, two and a half years ago, I helped announce the AWS carbon footprint tool. You know, on the same day I was of my presentation, I co-presented and you know, I was happy to see that it get announced and launched a few months later. But it's kind of stagnated ever since then. I'd really love to see that get much more sophisticated, provide API access, and really provide a lot more granular detail for their customers. Gael: Fair point because AWS is under a bit of scrutiny, I would say, these last days with all the layoff and not moving that fast anymore compared to others. But the trend as a very big AWS client, do you still see a positive trend toward more transparency and sustainability from the AWS US team?Drew: I do and, and overall, you know, really kind of building on Dominique's point a minute ago. You know, it's one thing to have the data, but AWS also made some of the largest renewable energy purchases in the world over the last two years. I'd rather have them do more of that than get better data from me.It's my opinion.Gael: Where is a priority. Yeah. And they do have a lot of infrastructure to provide with greener energy because they're stuck in some region in the US with not that low carbon energy or not that low carbon electricity to be more correct. But, okay. That's good that we started to mention AWS USbecause I wanted to ask both of you, what are the main tools you used?I mean, we talked a lot about metrics. Obviously you started with people. You started with training, raising awareness, et cetera. But what are the tools that you mobilized to achieve your journey into IT sustainability, I would say.Dominique: Since last October, I think we are pretty much lucky in France because we do have a new tool, and this tool has been designed by the French government and its name is RGESN and it stands if I want to translate it in English, it stands for general framework for eco-designing digital services. This framework has 79 questions.It only takes half a day to perform an auto assessment, and then you get a first score and you have ideas about what you can improve. So it is a very first step to be achieved For us, it's a great tool. Certainly it's not enough, but at least I think it would be really great if every company could use it because it's free. And now at OCTO, we are running this assessment on every project we do for our clients. And what's amazing is that you got a score out of 100%. And when the team sees that there are about 40, 45%, then the team wants to go further. So we are at the very, very beginning of using this framework, but so far I find it much more powerful than all the top-down decisions that we have been taking so far.Gael: With a bit of gamification on top of it, I want to get top score.Dominique: Exactly. Exactly.Gael: And which areas does this tool cover? Is it only about how you design your digital service, or is it also on how you host it?Dominique: Exactly. You have eight different topics. You have topics about where your cloud provider, you have topic about on which kind of mobile your service is going to be running. You have topics in every field. When you design and develop and run digital services. It's really a good wide approach.Gael: And we will put the link to this tool description in the show notes, obviously as usual. Drew, you mentioned already AWS sustainable dashboard, but did you leverage other tools like the assessment, an assessment grid as Dominique's just mentioned, or other tools to empower your teams and hand them into the sustainable journey.Drew: Yes. And that, by the way, that framework sounds fantastic. I want one. Starbucks is in every cloud, but I'll talk about AWS cause that's the one I work most closely with for my systems. Prior to our sustainability journey, we were already very familiar and had worked very closely with the AWS well architected framework.We had been through several reviews to make sure we're secure, efficient, cost effective, and all the other different pillars they have or still haven't and had in that framework. But, you know, again, about two years ago also at Reinvent, AWS launched sustainability pillar to the well-architected framework.And that's actually a very similar sounding kind of set of questions that get asked. And ultimately generate a report on, you know, how well you're doing, what opportunities exist for further improvement. And again, that's a similar thing. If you're doing well, there's just a few more things.Let's go tackle those things and finish the job, or look how much further we have to go. Let's go ahead and tackle the most important highest priority element. Moving forward. So that's actually a big piece of it. Along the journey of trying to figure out how to measure a carbon footprint, it definitely leveraged other tools.You know, one more tool that comes to mind that I depended on to help quantify our carbon footprint as well as some opportunities for improvement, is cloud carbon footprint. An open source tool that was put out by the ThoughtWorks team to help ingest cloud usage data, cloud diagnostic. Usage data and generate reports that show cloud usage and cloud carbon footprint over time.Even to this day, I actually use some of the logic that's used inside of cloud carbon footprint, but I apply it to some of my other Datadog dashboards that I look on a regular basis.Gael: Yeah, cloud carbon footprint was actually the latest question on the Friday pool that we have now, the weekly pool that we have on the Green IO channel. Cause we gathered so much knowledge from all our guests that we decided to have this little game. And that's quite fun that you mentioned it because that carbon footprint was actually the latest question.Bouncing back on what you said, Drew, actually, I realize that the referential, the assessment grid that Dominique mentioned does not have an English version. If among the listeners there are any people who'd like to volunteer to translate it, to put it somewhere on the internet, I will be more than happy.And I will actually ask this question also on a few social networks. I try to be active and that will be actually super cool if someone, of course, on a purely open source, with a purely open source approach, would like to translate it and put it somewhere. Yeah. We'll be super happy to give him or her a hand.But I think that will be very useful. You're not the first English speaker to tell me, oh, actually, I'd like to have a look at it now. You've got a plugin also that you can put on your brother so that the way to implement your diagnosis. So, very interesting tool, and it might also help a bit the discussion we're having at the W3C.It goes beyond simple Web design, but it's interesting as well. That being said. Let's try to take a step back and with everything you shared so far and all those experiences, ongoing experiences, because I do understand your message to both of you that it's still in early stage, you're still on a continuous improvement approach.The job is not done. And I actually don't believe it could be ever completely finished. The sustainability is a journey. It's not a destination. What if you had the ability to fast forward yourself in the future, what would you say to your future yourself in terms of do and don't?Dominique: If I were in a magic world. That means that I think my advice would be to hire already committed people. May seem very, very easy. But for me it's key to have a team fully aligned on the same purpose.Drew: And I love finding the right people. That's actually a great one, and I think Starbucks actually has sort of inherently a lot of those people. To begin with, our mission, our mission statement, is to inspire and nurture the human spirit, one person, one cup, one neighborhood at a time. That's a very positive message, and it seems to attract people who want to do good, who have this sort of mission driven at their core. You know, if I were, you know, leading an organization in the future and I wanted to make sure we did this right, I would be, you know, super clear that this is important, right? It's important across the board. I would empower everyone to come up with ideas within their own systems.They know what best engineers know their systems, on how they can do better, what opportunities exist frequently, and that's just the way they design things. But other times it does require investment. And we wanna make sure we match the investment with, you know, how important we feel this is for our company and the world.Gael: So starting with people, I feel very much aligned with what you both said. Now, taking a further step back, I'd like to ask you a couple of question going beyond tech teams. And my first question will be, and that one might be especially true for you, Drew, how green for tech and green by tech initiatives work together.Drew: Yeah, it is a good question and it's not something I've dealt with directly. I've not had, you know, what we call the business side, ask my team specifically to do some green initiative, but that does happen quite a bit, you know, in the sustainability team or some other business. Department is looking to, you know, achieve some results or deliver some new capability that tech can deliver.So that happens quite a bit. The five tech initiatives are ones that tend to come out of like our just inspire people that have an idea and either kind of bring it up to as a proposal or do it as kind of hack sort of situation. A lot of our hack projects which we tend to do once or twice a year.You know, they get voted on and some of the best ideas get shared much more broadly. They get presented to our executive leadership teams and very frequently, more recently, more frequently, they're getting actual funding to go even further. That's where I think a lot of the by tech initiatives come from.Gael: Dominique, what about greenwashing? Was it an issue? Was it the reason maybe starting with OCTO that you decided actually to be quite quiet about this move, this internal move into tech sustainability?Dominique: Well, just like I said, it's a journey and we are really afraid of greenwashing at OCTO. Not only greenwashing, I mean, when we advocate for something, when we communicate about something. We really want that there is no issue and so we have started to communicate about sustainability and we communicate about our efforts, our findings.We communicate of what we try, what we succeed, but what we don't succeed. We are more communicating about the journey. And less about achievements. But I think that now with the new framework. I think that we will soon be able to prove, because this is, I mean, a state framework, we will much more be able to prove what we are saying.Drew: And I think greenwashing is always a concern. Speaking for myself, I do talk a lot about, you know, sustainable technology. But I certainly don't do it with a lens towards," Hey, look at all this great work we did "and use that as sort of the main point. The main point is I think we're always learning. If I have something that I learned and I can share that with someone else that helps them, that's a win for everybody.So I think it is about the journey, it's about the details and opportunities for constant growth.Gael: Yeah, thanks both of you. A very touchy topic and I've got a second one for you. And then I will ask you easier questions, I promise. But the second tough question is that you are both working in companies with big objectives when it comes to growth. Do you believe that decoupling, so only talking about carbon emission, a greenhouse gas emission, sorry.Do you believe that decoupling can be achieved, but you can grow a company without growing greenhouse gas emissions at some point?Drew: I think to a point, you know, we've definitely seen that within some of our platforms. You know, let's look at the last three years for our loyalty engine doubled the size of that business. That doubled the number of active users on that platform. You know, the carbon footprint is significantly down from when we started during that time.And costs are down too and operational costs. Now we might look at that and say, wow, we were quite bloated three years. Which is true, but I think that over time, the lens of cost optimization and then after that carbon optimization has really gotten us to decouple that the growth from the actual cost and carbon.Now at some point, these two things coalesce into and become more tightly coupled, and that's where I think it's less about the metrics itself and more about what opportunities exist for us to become more efficient both from a cost and department perspective.Gael: Thank you. And Dominique, do you have an opinion on it as well ?Dominique: Yes, I have an opinion. It's a very, very personal one. And my answer is no, I don't think so. And it's very difficult for me to say that because I like IT. I like this kind of industry. But we know that we do have a big issues with planetary boundaries. And we know that IT honestly is not doing any good on planetary boundaries right now. So I really think that we need to change the way we do business. Probably IT could help sometimes, probably it could not. I know this is a very political point of view, but I think that we really need to challenge the way we do business.Gael: Thanks for sharing it, Dominique. That's not always easy. No judgment on this podcast. So I'm very happy that you feel free enough to share your vision, and that is true that Planetary Boundaries is a true challenge on how much we believe we can grow our current system, especially then we incorporate social injustice and stuff like that and where people should catch up and where people should slow down.But that's, I mean, you've got great podcast and, and all the content discussing this topic way better than I could ever done, but that's still a very interesting point of view. Okay, so that was a difficult question. I'm super grateful that both of you, you agree to answer it very openly and honestly.My two last questions are easier promise. The first one is, you already shared a bit about this. In one or two sentences maximum. What are the trend that you noticed in our industry today? Is it going toward the right direction when it comes in terms of sustainability, of awareness about all those environmental impacts?I know that we focused a lot on greenhouse gas emissions today, but there are more environmental impacts like water usage, abiotic resource depletion, et cetera, et cetera. But hey, that's the way you started your journey. So I didn't want to lead the witness into things that were not actually things that you wanted to share. What is the trend that you've noticed both in Europe and more, maybe specifically in France for Dominique and in US for Drew, but actually you're both quite involved in community like climate action tech, we mentioned it, tech rocks for OCTO. So what are the trends that you've not noticed recently?I would say the last two years.Dominique: Well, France seems to be moving fast on sustainable IT. When I see the communities, the numbers of experts on that topic, but it's always too slow for sure. And you're right, it's not only about greenhouse gases and energy anymore. Now in France we tend more and more to use the lifecycle assessments and we try to go beyond carbon emissions because it's also a matter of what the usage biodiversity.So it's the beginning, but now we are talking less about greenhouse gases and well, I see two trends. And it's different among companies. For non-tech companies, IT sustainability is not an issue so far. Just like Drew said, most of the time, the sustainability issues are somewhere else not on IT, so it's pretty much difficult for those companies, or for us as consultancy company to move on that topic. And in the French tech ecosystem, you have a few companies which have really started to take IT sustainability into account, but right now it's far to be the majority of them. So I really, really hope that the new tool I was talking about will help. Drew: And I think from, you know, a general perspective, when I started this journey, you know, again, three years back, I would struggle to encounter somebody who knew what I was talking about when I asked about sustainable IT. Fast forward to today, I think it's a fairly common topic. I think it, you know, ways to go as we said earlier, but at least it's understood.There's a growing sets of communities of people thinking about these problems. And you know, as far as in sort of in the US, I actually looked to Europe. And what's happening there to understand really kind of the forefront of what we could be doing. So I appreciate what you're doing Gael and Dominique.Gael: So thanks a lot for sharing your views on the general trend, both in the US and in France. And I promise this will be my last question, but if you had one or two resources to share with your audience to learn more about digital sustainability, IT sustainability, or sustainability at large. It could be book, it could be thought leaders, it could be articles, conference, whatever, podcasts of course. What would you like them to read or to listen to?Drew: Well, I think we've already mentioned this one, but I really enjoy the climate action tech community. It's a Slack community. Amazing people with a fantastic set of organizers that are really kind of inspiring and help me learn and grow along my journey. And through that group, I learned about, you know, the Tom Greenwood's Sustainable Web design book that came out from a book apart a few years ago.The kind of, you know, it's not a long book, but it actually does a very broad sort of overview of Web engineering sustainably and calls out a lot of different areas for sites can be improved and further resources are identified. I gave this book to every single person on my team as just a bit of inspiration.Dominique: As for myself, those are going to be references for French speakers. Sorry about that. I really like a podcast from Richard Hanna, and the podcast is Techologie. So I find it very interesting because he invites different kind of of people doing sustainable IT just like developers, designers that they talk about accessibility, not only about eco-design.Very, very interesting one. Techologie. And the second one is a MOOC it's a MOOC from INRIA, INRIA is a digital research organization in France. And I mean it's a MOOC which is free. And the name is the environmental impact of digital technologies. This is very well explained. Very well done to start on that topic.Gael: And actually Dominique, you shared references that are available in English, so thanks a lot for that because INRIA has an English version. Yeah. And when I do a digital collage session in the English version of La Fresque du Numérique, I always mention obviously INRIA as materials to dive a bit deeper into the topics. INRIA has an English version and regarding Techologie you have a few episodes in English, I believe, and I must say that with the other French podcast L'Octet Vert so in English, I think it could be transferred by Green Byte. They are the two podcasts that inspired me to launch Green IO. I mean, there are two giants, Richard Hanna and Tristan Nitot that I owe a lot, and I'm very happy that thanks to you I can salute them and say to all the French speakers that please make sure that you pay attention to this two podcasts.They're great. I mean, you can listen to almost all the episode, that's very valuable information. And when it comes to the climate action tech community, we've already mentioned it several times, but "hello everyone, so happy, all those great facilitators, all those great coordinators doing an amazing job."So I'm super proud to be part of this community and I'm very grateful that I've been able to meet Drew thanks to you. And that's it. I would like to, once again, thank you for this beautiful conversation answering easy question. Mm, no, I don't think that there were that many easy questions. Very hard questions, very transparent answers.So thanks a lot for both of you. I hope it will help a lot of tech leaders, product leaders, data leaders, sustainability leaders, to kickstart their journey or to ramp up their journey into sustainability, where tech is a great part of it, whether it's green by Tech, or Green for Tech. Thanks a lot, both of you.It was a pleasure to be on the show. Have a great morning for Drew. Have a great evening for Dominique and I think I'm gonna call it a day now. Thanks a lot.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

Ready to explore the digital sustainability landscape of Singapore? Travel there with Gaël Duez to meet Thibaut, the local representative of both the Climat fresk and the Digital Collage in Singapore and Ian, founder of Greenie web. ➡️ Join us for an insightful discussion as we delve into the Singaporean tech ecosystem and its sustainability landscape. ✅ Our guests share their views on the evolving domain of digital sustainability, achievements, and trends in IT sustainability in Singapore and in South-East Asia, as well as their perspectives on the main environmental crises. ❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectThibault is a versatile sustainability practitioner and digital footprint expert. He helps MNCs draft roadmaps for leaner technology towards the greater good, leads Climate Fresk & Digital Collage workshops, and is the co-founder of a VC-backed circular economy startup, Found & Seek. A true advocate of an enthusiastic, solution-oriented sustainability that taps into the power of collaborative action. Ian Chew is the Chief Executive of Greenie Web, a climate-tech SaaS company at the forefront of digital decarbonization. Greenie Web helps enterprises achieve their net-zero goals, reduces internet-related energy consumption, and provides a low-carbon method to digitize traditional industries and build Web 3.0. Ian's expertise in this field has been recognized internationally, and he has been invited to speak at various EU countries' classes program in Singapore.Thibaut's LinkedInIan’s LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green IO website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Thibaut and Ian’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeGreenie WebFound & SeekE-wasteE-waste collection bins in SingaporeDatacentersRazer Inc.Thibaut's medium (articles about Datacenters, Ecological Backpack or e-waste in Singapore)Qcon LondonMalaysia StarVC (Venture Capital)World Wide Waste written by Gerry McGovernAPI days in Singapore E-waste collection bins empowered by the National Environment AgencyClimate Fresk and Digital Collage in SingaporeStubborn optimism on climate - Christiana FigueresCNA : major newspaper and media in SingaporeNate HagensTranscriptGael: Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for doers making our digital world greener, one byte at a time. I'm your host Gael Duez, and I invite you to meet a wide range of guests working in the tech industry to help you better understand and make sense of its sustainability issues and find inspiration to positively impact the digital world.If you like the podcast, please rate it on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform to spread the word to more responsible technologists like you. And now enjoy the show. In this episode, we go to Singapore to meet Thibaut and Ian. Both will facilitate the first sustainable track at the API days conference this week.So this interview is very keen to my heart because I had the pleasure to meet John, the founder of API Days Singapore, in the Paris session last year. In the middle of the main hallway, crowded like hell, we tried to get our hands on the sandwich before jumping to the next round of conferences. He shared with me his interest in sustainability, how he was enjoying the sustainable track I was hosting and asked me if I knew anyone in Singapore. I immediately introduced him to my dear friend, Thibaut and BOOM, voilà !After Qcon London last month. Yet another big tech conference dedicated significant time to the sustainability topic. Well done. Why Thibaut ? Thibaut is a local representative of both the climate fresk and the digital collage in Singapore.He has managed to boost their participants and create a vibrant community of facilitators with diverse backgrounds. On top of this volunteering activity, Thibaut is a consultant in digital sustainability. And before his latest adventure, he has an extensive dry, quick hold of managing business units in the digital sector in France, in Singapore, and also in Hong Kong.Why Ian? Maybe because he has his picture in several journals as Last Days, the star manager, the CWR and more to come. But to be honest, maybe because he founded 13 years ago when no one actually cared about the topic: Greenie Web, his digital decarbonization agency to green the Internet. And now full disclosure, we should have had a female guest with us today.You know how important gender parity is for me. But she was prevented from speaking by her organization at the very last moment. This is something I notice more and more, and this really upsets me because a new employer should be able to bar someone from sharing her professional experience, providing no confidential information is shared.Still.Let's now dive with our guest into the lively Singaporean IT sustainability scene. Welcome, Ian and Thibaut. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today !Ian: Thank you, Gael. It's a pleasure to be here.Thibaut: Thanks, Gael.Gael: Thanks both of you. Ian, I'd like to ask you about your journey with sustainability first, as I do with all my regular guests. But first I'd like to start with a more personal question. So how proud was your mother?Ian: Ah, that question. So just to give our audience a bit of a context, about a week or so back I actually posted a LinkedIn about one of my first features in a national newspaper. So even though I'm Singaporean and what we do predominantly is based out of Singapore. I had this wonderful opportunity to be featured on a complete full page in the Star Malaysia, which is Malaysia's largest English publication. It's a full spread across two pages in the middle of the newspaper, and it has been really my dream to share about sustainability on a national scale. So that was something that I was very proud of. And it also harks back to my childhood when I shared with my mom that one day I hoped to be in the newspaper for something positive, for something newsworthy, and it was a dream come true.So that moment was a very proud one for my entire family, not just my mom. And very happy that you asked that question because it really brings smiles to my face, even just describing it.Gael: Yeah. But I can't imagine, that's great that you manage to, as you say, raise awareness in - I've read the Malaysia Star when I traveled in Malaysia so a couple of time, and that is definitely a big newspaper there and being able to raise awareness in- such a topic that is not that mainstream, like sustainability it is, but digital sustainability and tech being an issue as much as a solution, that's not that common in Malaysia as far as I remember. So really, congratulations. How did this journey in sustainability start certain years ago or even maybe before?Ian: Definitely. So the turning point for me really was one of the summits that they had back in 2009, so it was the Copenhagen Summit, and I still recall reading of that. It was called the Hopenhagen Summit. So instead of C, they replaced it with H because in 2009 that was supposedly back then one of the major turning points, right?We've got a lot of people talking about climate change. That, for me, was one of the first large scale movements after the year 2000. So I was, as a much younger person, very interested. And one of the things that happened in that same year was that I first picked up coding. So people were talking a lot about biodiversity.There was a lot of talk about deforestation and how to combat that, right? Combat wild forest fires. But in my mind, back then, when I first started coding, I was thinking to myself what can be done for technology? What can be done to ensure that technology does not go down the path of the other mainstream, I would say, assets or mainstream activities that we do.Because when we had the industrial age, we had all these factories and no one thought about sustainability from the get-go. Right? So now they- or rather back then- they were then thinking of how to make, say manufacturing greener. How to make the physical supply chains greener? And I was thinking if they had done that right at the very beginning when they were first building factories about a hundred years ago, then we wouldn't have had that problem.So back in 2009, when I first started picking up coding, tech was still much newer as compared to today, right? A good number of people still didn't own personal computers. They didn't have personal laptops. Lots of people I knew actually went to internet cafes when they wanted to surf or to play certain video games, right.Certain computer games. So back then tech was still very nascent and I was thinking if we could embed sustainability into tech from the get-go, then we wouldn't be facing this same problem that we had with the industrialization age. Because in the tech age, if we talk about sustainability in tech from the beginning, then we would have a very sustainable journey: one in which our future generations would not have any trouble taking over, and one in which we would have no regret creating. So that's a bit of the genesis story with regards to my well journey in tech and sustainability, 13 years back.Gael: And Thibaut, what about you? Did you ask the right question from the start or is it a bit more like me who after almost a decade, more than a decade in IT like "oops, actually, we should pay attention to sustainability at some point".Thibaut: Yeah, so I come from the other side actually. Cause I crafted my career in IT consulting. I was a local partner for IT projects -like, I don't know- HR apps for banks, this kind of stuff. I also worked in machine learning and AI. But this topic really came to my mind during Covid where I actually decided to shift.I was in the midst of I mean, I was realizing something was off precisely because I didn't ask myself the right questions. And more importantly, I think I didn't ask my customers the right questions cause I was really: "oh, I've always had customer facing roles and my role was to advise and to help them build meaningful Web apps".These kind of, you know, IT digital structures. And now that when I look back, I realized them, I really didn't ask the right questions, and I contributed to projects that were beyond not stupidity. It's a bit harsh to say that. I realized I was working on apps. I perfectly knew another team in the company had it, but you know, business is business and I had to deliver because that was my pay grade at the end. Right. And my approach of tech and sustainability together comes from a more- I would say, -French pessimistic approach and more like a pragmatic approach, saying, "okay, you know, tech, you've been working in this and I realized I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to make an impact. Like it is not as exotic as the end.It's more like, "okay, you know how to do this, but you want to do that, so how can you make something out of these two and see how it goes?" So this is pretty much my story.Gael: And once again, COVID has brought a lot of bad things to the world, but I cannot count the number of people. It has actually helped to pose a little and think about their job and shift or adjust things in their professional and personal life. That's very weird and amazing at the same time.That being said. Regarding Singapore now, because that's actually the main hero, the main character of our story today, it is a beautiful city island. What could you tell me about tech in Singapore? Because I read pretty amazing numbers like VC funding. You've got, I think, 90 of the 10 biggest tech companies in the world do have some presence or even headquarters in Singapore.It seems to be very vibrant as well when it comes to funding a lot of startups, et cetera. So is it just a hype or is it something more grounded in Singaporean culture?Thibaut: I will actually as my wife is Singaporean. So when I say we, and when I say Singapore, I'm including myself not as a citizen of Singapore, but as somebody who's here to stay, which is something is important to re-situate because sometimes people are just here for a few years and, you know so I won't speak on behalf of Singaporeans, but at least I feel part of their wonderful country.I think Singapore is at the crossroads right now. Just before, we prepared this podcast with you, Gael, you mentioned. This concept of pharmacon, which is a concept I really find truly amazing and extremely powerful, explains that basically something that can be seen as a silver bullet, as a remedy can also be considered as something that makes a situation worse, like a poison.So it's a very old concept, which I really think should resonate with our conception of technology today in Singapore and beyond. But going back to Singapore, they are attracting a lot of talent, a lot of funding, a lot of actual interest from the world, from Asia and also from Southeast Asia. And they need to make their decision whether technology should be leveraged for the greater good or should be leveraged for other topics like, I don't know, speculation, financing or whatever.When you have a look at what companies are saying or what agencies are saying, you actually see the beginning of something rising here where I would say that to the highest level of national government agencies, they know that there is something to tap into and companies feel it too.They feel something, but they have a hunch. But they still can't grasp how they should do it, what they should know and what would be the approach. And in general, I think, when it comes to sustainability with the capital S in Singapore, the strategies here, the KPIs are here, but the tactics, they are very, very scarce to find.And a lot of exciting projects in Singapore are actually into the investigation of how you can make sustainability real and operational beyond just a few numbers, carbon footprint calculation and these kinds of things. How can you make sustainability relatable and reality rooted in the life of people at home and in the companies?Gael: It's very interesting this crossroad image. And Ian, what are, according to you, the key features of the Singaporean Tech scene at the moment?Ian: I think that's a very good question. To me, the Singaporean tech scene, there are two parts to it, right? The first part would be the pre VC part, and the second part would be the post VC part. So the VC era in Singapore actually is very young. It probably began about 10, 15 years ago, plus minus, right? And the first group of VC, that came to Singapore, were not exactly local VCs there. It wasn't an organic process in which venture capital suddenly sprouted up in Singapore, it was very much government driven. The government saw a need for there to be venture capital, to really grow the entire tech ecosystem, right? Because prior to the VC era, Singapore, it was very much of family businesses or individual hobbies who became very good at certain niche areas.An example would be creative technologies that were very innovative, right? They actually created something that's called the sound blaster card. You can look that up. In its time at least, it was one of the most advanced tools that you could have in a computer. Right, but coming back to the present day in this VC era, we see that the Singapore real ecosystem has managed to grow quite steadily in the last 10 years or so.A lot of it has been government supported, and when we tie it to our conversation and our topic today on it and sustainability, I think that it's a very good time to be in Singapore. Right. Because the past 10 years was spent building this entire tech in a sense IT ecosystem. And now there is this very large push both by industry and by the government to ensure that sustainability and climate change is at the forefront of matters.And it's really for two very big reasons. The first one is because the country, our country , is an island nation, right? So it's a very existential issue in which if we don't play our part for climate change and the sea level rises in the way it has been rising, or the rate of rise increases even more, the country may cease to exist in a hundred, 200 years time.Right? So that's one. And the second thing :To do with the competitive nature of the global economy because climate technology and sustainability in general would be one of the largest drivers of growth in the 21st century. So whoever, who lacks behind in this industry would lose a very important competitive edge in the global economy.And as a country with little to no natural resources, being able to harness climate technology at its best is something that relates to the survival of the nation's economy. And so is also an existential issue from an economic sense.Gael: And suddenly I feel very, very stupid because I was expecting an answer regarding how the Singapore economy wants to stay cutting edge. So exactly what I said in this second part, but actually didn't realize that it was a matter of survival for Singapore to fight by climate change. Yes, it's an island.It's not a very mountainous island. So yes, actually you are absolutely right. The crossroad image is beautiful because Singapore is a crossroad and is at a crossroad. But business wise and sustainability wise, and bouncing back Thibaut on what you said with a broader vision to Southeast Asia. Can you tell me why Singapore is a beacon and kind of maybe leading the charge against climate change and other environmental crises and how Singapore is different from the rest of the region and how the rest of the region is keeping up the pace toward more sustainable?Thibaut: Yeah, I think, I mean, again, I don't want to be rude, right? Just consider my inputs as somebody who truly loves this place and, and I try to be as mindful as I can. I feel Singapore is kind of cursed in a way because again, it's a beacon and honestly, an ivory tower in the middle of a region where actually it strongly clashes with the situation of the countries around it.It's very hard to compare the status of sustainability in the Philippines. Very famous for the plastic pollution, for instance, and Singapore for simple reasons:In terms of talent, again, I'm repeating this, but in terms of talent and of funding, they are not playing in the same playground. Singapore truly has an absolutely, honestly, a unique opportunity to actually be the flame bearer, you know, like during the Olympics to propose a new future. To represent this, I think this shift in terms of mindset. I recently joined a conference with a youth climate activist. And there was a senior minister related to the transportation authority in Singapore.He was exposing to the climate activists and to the audience on that day that he wants Singapore to shift from being the garden in the city to the city in a garden. And we find that extremely smart and beautiful in a way to reverse the topic. This shifting of mindset.Personally, I think it strongly shows how much Singapore wants to lead the effort in sustainability within its borders, but also encourage foster collaboration on the regional level and show the example, show how it's done in a way, cuz Singapore again has the opportunity, has the chance to have all the material they can, they need, to craft this desirable and appealing future to craft tech and sustainability.Gael: Ian, what are, according to you, the main hurdles that other countries in Southeast Asia face at the moment to speed up on sustainability?Ian: Yes. Yes. Definitely. So to me, I don't feel that they're hurdles. In fact, I feel that they're really, really good opportunities and that's really why, if we look at it from a more macro perspective, a good amount of VC money, right? So we're talking about venture capital firms either opening new offices or increasing their footprint in Southeast Asia.Right. So a good amount of VC money is flowing into Southeast Asia because there are these opportunities within the region and in a sense, the various countries in Southeast Asia. People like to refer to us collectively as a region, but we aren't as homogenous as most people think we are. In fact, Southeast Asia is one of the most diverse places.Around the world, right? We are made up of 10 different countries and hundreds of different languages and different beliefs and practices. So it's a place where there is a great amount of diversity, and this diversity is really key to the region's growth. It brings about new ideas and from these new perspectives and new ideas, you can get truly new innovation.So to me, addressing your question, Gael I feel that Southeast Asia has lots of opportunity. The hurdles may really well be related to the lack of at -least in the past- relevant capital to fund the innovation. But as we've seen in recent years, the amount of capital pouring into the region has accelerated, and that's why you see more and more startups being born in the region and even more and more unicorns being mentored in the past couple of years.Gael: And some of them being in the climate, tech sector. Indeed. And so if we roll up our sleeves and focus a bit on "What is being achieved in sustainability in Singapore?". Could you share with us some initiatives that you really feel should be put under the spotlight? Whether it's in data center sustainability, maybe a change in the way things are designed in the digital industry or the way they're coded or maybe the way that people handle data and everything related to AI or model training. Where things are moving and what are the landmark initiatives that you'd like to share when it comes to the Singapore Tech scene?Ian: I'll just hop in here. So from my perspective, I feel that there has been an increase in awareness in general sustainability. We're talking about people being very mindful about things like Earth Day, earth Hour. In the second half of last year in Singapore, we had a climate action week. So in terms of sustainability as a whole, right?We're talking about awareness regarding plastic waste, regarding General GHG, which stands for greenhouse gas emissions, right? There is an increase in such awareness, but if you look at it specifically from an IT angle, right, sustainability in IT, I think it's still very nascent. And I can tell you from experience because at Greenie Web, when we talk to corporations, when we talk to large corporations, when we talk to smaller businesses, right?Your SMEs, your small and medium enterprises, there is a very eureka moment experienced by these corporations, right? They still feel that sustainability is a given each time you use a digital process because they grew up, or rather they were trained in a way that they were trained in the past 10, 20 years, in a moment in history where digitization automatically equated with going green.In other words, when they first stopped using paper to send up mail, right, they started using it. They were told that they were going green, and that to some extent has been true. Right? But we are seeing what we call in-house at Greenie Web, the carbon financial divergence, right? Whereby finances in the past used to cap the carbon cost of an operation, whereas now with software, the financial cap that used to be placed on top of carbon has since been dissolved, and now you have this divergence where costs can be kept very low, but carbon emissions can skyrocket. Your carbon footprint is no longer restrained by your budget, right? A thousand dollars can get you maybe two, three, even five years worth of electronic digital marketing service.And so you can send out these emails every day. And if you look at the carbon cost per email and you multiply that by the number of emails you send now in a month, multiply that by the number of years a thousand dollars can get you for those professional services. You now have a far larger carbon footprint from the digital wall then you would have had in a physical world.And so these are the things that we like to share with our partners, right? And we like to share with the general public because long gone are the days whereby going online means you're going green. In fact, in the present day, by going online you could actually be tricking yourself into thinking you're going green, but actually be doing the exact opposite.So that's a very long answer but I hope it gives you a bit of a picture flavor of digital sustainability.Gael: This shifting moment when people realize digital does not always equal green is always very interesting. It reminds me, you know, the examples that Gerry McGovern took in his book World Wide Waste, when he actually talks, brings the topics of e-reader. Hmm. And that spontaneously, people would say, well, that's wonderful to buy a Kindle or whatever kind of e-reader you want because I will save so many trees to be chopped off.And the answer that the studies when you incorporate life cycle analysis, et cetera, et cetera, for the US was kind of astonishing because depending on the study, you had a positive impact on the planet. If you read between 20, and for the other studies , it was 60 books per year. Otherwise, the carbon footprint is negative.It's better to buy physical books than an E-reader and on average in the US. An adult citizen will read two books per year on average, of course. Huge discrepancy here. That's really stuck me with this example of, yeah, that's not that simple. And knowing that a lot of people are actually getting more and more aware of it in the tech scene in Singapore and pretty much everywhere around the world, this is like a huge battle that is being won as we speak at the moment.Do you have other examples to share about initiatives taking place in Singapore at the moment?Thibaut: Yeah, so actually Gael, you mentioned something, a keyword and that's actually my favorite approach to calculate impact footprint or in terms of waste of technology in general, which by the way will be the topic on our track during API days in Singapore with Ian here. It's the life cycle.I think it's extremely important to have companies and individuals understand that the dematerialization is just materialization elsewhere, just not in our backyard. And to help them perceive this, I really like to use the circular approach cradle to grave approach focused on the lifecycle.When it comes to understanding the life cycle assessment of technology, it goes through three steps, right?The manufacturing, the usage of data, and finally, the end of life, whether it's obsolescence or recycling slash e-waste. So in Singapore, actually, we have a few incentives that were launched recently that can actually represent each of these steps. And the fun fact here is that Singapore really likes to rely on local champions to push for topics.Example, manufacturing. You have this company that you may know called Razer, Razer very famous, I mean, in the gaming industry at least, a very famous brand of laptops. And they are gonna launch their new eco design laptop in the next few weeks. I hope to be part of this amazing event because they are planning some cool incentives to mention that.But Singapore is now taking the topic seriously of eco-design hardware and manufacturing thanks to the promotion of a local champion. Because Razor is Singaporean now coming to usage one word must be mentioned and I know Gael, it's true to your heart. It's the data centers. So data centers in Singapore represent roughly 7% of the energy consumption, which is, when you think about it, it's huge in terms of ratio.It's huge. 7% of the energy in Singapore is used for data centers. And also here you have some actual local champions. So for instance, our friend from coolest DC and PS that may be listening to this podcast in the future, who's actually working on innovative ways to develop data centers through smart cooling systems and a better layout of racks, et cetera.And it's actually super important for Singapore to find their space in this industry for a simple reason :a lot of projects that were designed to go to Hong Kong- in terms of data centers- are now rerouted in Singapore for reasons that are quite obvious. You can imagine, especially between the fact that the US and China are fighting over technology topics and IP intellectual property.So Singapore actually is benefiting from this shift of strategy from the big tech companies, from the US to actually absorb new projects of data centers and Singapore is actually super interested in these topics the change of approach in the Singapore government on data centers project that were a few years ago rejected for sustainability reasons and now they are re-accepted for the reasons I just mentioned, is actually very pragmatic, but very representative of the strategy on Tech of Singapore.Finally on the e-waste part, the end of life, Singapore launched on the 1st of July, 2021- so not so long ago, almost two years ago- very exciting project of electronic waste collection bins that was decided by the National Environment Agency that now is collecting a lot of waste because in terms of number, for instance, in terms of electronic waste.Back in 2020, you had roughly 20 kilograms of electronic waste per pack per year in Singapore, which is huge compared to the other countries in Southeast Asia. So to summarize this, you can see that Singapore understood quite extensively the necessity of addressing the life cycle assessment and started incentives either private through companies on regulation level for E-waste, for instance, to take this topic very, very, very seriously. And it starts with awareness, which is actually a topic that we can delve into later.Gael: Very interesting the approach that we need local champions like having a change, a move toward a digital system, be rooted with local participants, local champions in how the Singaporean governments and other actors promote local champions. Very interesting approach indeed. Not necessarily the one always followed in Europe, but already 7% of the energy being consumed by data centers.And because of geopolitical tension, this number might rise both in absolute and related terms. Should it be a concern? How sustainable is it for the industry? Ian, do you have any ideas on it?Ian: I think that most people in the data industry are also cracking their heads with regards to the reduction of energy consumption and green data centers in general. And that's really rooted in government policy as well, because about three years back, the Singapore government actually launched a moratorium on the building of new data centers.So that was something that Thibaut alluded to. From somewhere around 2019, 2020, all the way till the end of last year, right about the second half of last year, you couldn't build a new data center in Singapore. There were many reasons for it, but excessive data consumption and of course land space were key considerations when talking about data centers.So the idea of being able to squeeze more into existing data centers. To ensure that new data centers were built in a way that consumed much less, has always been top of mind in the data center industry in Singapore. And I think that as we shift into a world that is I would say hyper digitized with so many more people coming online in the Southeast Asian region for the first time this year in 2023 and for the years to come.The need for data centers will only increase in this region, and that's also extra impetus for people creating data centers to really think of how they can do so sustainably because data centers are not short-term digital infrastructure, right? They are digital infrastructure meant to last for decades, if not longer. And sustainable planning, in addition to the sustainability on the hardware devices will be paramount in ensuring this transition for us. At least for myself because we look at the more software side of things. We are also exploring ways with several of these partners in industry to see how software sustainability can increase the durability of hardware and data centers, allowing for extended life cycles so we don't have these use and throw or use and then recycle kind of situations that have been very rampant and that really add up to the e-waste situation experiencing by data centers in many other parts of the world.Gael: Most of your clients are receptive. Do they manage to find a way to switch the way the code, the way they design software, and still answering the needs of their final customers?Ian: I think we are still at a very early stage right now with most of these partners that we are talking to, they're still in the stage whereby they're trying to understand more, understand how a change in code, a change in software or the refactoring of things within the digital wall can affect downstream processes and workflows.It's not as developed as we would like it to be, but I think that the necessity of the situation has brought them to the table in ways that we would not have imagined for many years.Gael: So still in the awareness phase, but not that early anymore. Thibaut, awareness is something that, yeah, that's your daily branded bread and butter almost now. So maybe you could confirm or comment on what I've just said, that the level of awareness among technologists, I would say in Singapore is rising fast. Is it something that you've noticed ?Thibaut: I'm gonna tell you I have many examples. I'm gonna quote one that I like to mention. When I arrived in Singapore two and a half years ago I remember that I wanted to do this, I wanted to work on the social social environmental impact of tech and helping companies design their linear infrastructures in a way. And some, not all of them, but a fair portion of sustainability practitioners that time in Singapore didn't mock me.Alright. But they were like, really, "you really think it's gonna be something to take care of?" " Do you, don't you think we have more pressing matters like energy shift?" Now I'm not saying companies are eagerly looking at this topic, but at least nobody's mocking me anymore because they realized something was off and something that could be used in this area.Okay. Technology and sustainability, it's not as obvious or as completely it's not black or, or white. Right? So that's actually in terms of awareness, I would say that we are still in the going from zero to one in Singapore. We are still in the very early stage of this. Now, when it comes to companies and I think that's what Ian is implying when he's working with partners.When you go to companies, you have to speak their language, right? And the language of companies when it comes to sustainability in general, and especially in Singapore, is this carbon footprint. If you don't take this approach of carbon footprint to companies they will not listen to you actually because they will not find a value in what you deliver.I have a lot of examples of that as well. When I talk to companies saying, you should do something about your carbon footprint or about your IT sustainability roadmap. Always comes the question of what is there for me? And what they imply here is either how much money are you gonna make me make, or are you gonna make me cut?Or how much CO2 am I gonna save? It's maybe very complex actually, to address this topic in companies for a lot of reasons. First, I can definitely vouch for that I guess, but it's very hard to explain how much cO2 is generated from your technical infrastructures if you want to be very accurate. And the second thing is that technology also bears various impacts like pollution, mental health and biodiversity, which are absolutely not taken into accounting, carbon accounting companies.So sometimes you feel a dissonance between the approach you have, the service you may deliver, and what the expectations of companies are.Gael: I think it's not only located in Singapore that the carbon accounting and yeah, raising the level of awareness when it comes to climate change is kind of the golden key. Helping you to enter in quite a lot of companies now. And after that you've got an opportunity to talk about the other environmental crisis, the other planetary boundaries.But carbon is the, as you say, what was your wording: the standard language to talk about sustain. sustainability.Thibaut: Yeah, you gotta give them what they want. Right? It's very important. Maybe more generally on awareness. It's changing a lot. We can't compare maturity, even though the level of the lifestyle in Singapore is very high. You can't compare the level of maturity in Singapore and I don't know, North America or for instance, however I believe, I mean, that's what I'm doing, as you said, as my brand and butter. But I really believe in the power, the power of communities, right? Let's forget about CO2 footprint, whatever. Honestly, this is interesting, but you can't expect, you can't afford to lose time on exactly knowing how much CO2 you will save.Let's act now. And I can see that definitely in Singapore, it's changing and it's about making connections that matter. And sometimes, you know, we focus a lot on feedback loops that may trigger the end of the world, like permafrost or I don't know, this kind of event. But we never focus so much on the feedback loop that can bring change to a higher level. Maybe, and that's what I say when I do workshops. I hope that I will be in one of my workshops one day at the next level. Because if Elon Musk actually did a workshop about climate change awareness a long time ago, maybe he wouldn't be considering some solutions he's mentioning like putting aerosols in the atmosphere et cetera.Gael: Well, actually you want to have a workshop where you will have Elon musk and it will help you having Elon Musk not becoming Elon Musk. So you are running anti, you know, prevention. You've got a prevention program against the new Elon Musk of this world.Thibaut: Let's imagine a multiverse where Elon Musk actually took part in a climate climate workshop or a climate threat. It's very important, I think, and there is a part of selflessness and awareness that I know it's kind of a leap of faith, but it's important for people who are crafting this kind of knowledge to believe in what they do because for sure you won't be able to see the impact the day after, but still you have to believe in it.Gael: Yeah, agree with you. And how many participants so far in Singapore for climate fresk and digital collage, it's like more dozens, hundreds, thousands.Thibaut: Ah, I would say both combined we are, we reached 4,000, I would say.Gael: Oh my goodness.Thibaut: Actually, it's actually growing a lot of momentum and we realize that working with people unlock unlimited potential. And now I can't say it for, I won't name anybody, but we are going to work with national government agencies to help them also embark on this wonderful journey to see, to identify and to show that sustainability does not necessarily have to be about regulations or bad news. It can also be exciting and appealing futures, and we are really helping companies also here through the community of volunteers to see that the pathways are exciting and it's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be brilliant.Gael: Yes, actually this is why I really enjoyed it and it was truly refreshing to hear Ian rephrasing my sentence from hurdles to opportunities because I also believe that optimism is the way forward. A stubborn optimism to Christiana Figueres. Ian, like taking a step back actually and looking at the scene, like the broader scene at Singapore and beyond.How do you feel today about climate change? I mean, you rightfully mentioned that it's actually an existential threat for your city, for your way of living, et cetera, et cetera. So how do you feel? Is it like a burden that you know is on your shoulders 24/7? Or actually, do you feel empowered or do you feel more optimistic?Yeah. What is your state of mind at the moment?Ian: So I feel that there is growing optimism with regards to the climate movement in Singapore. Back when I first thought of Greenie Web about 13 years ago, actually, it's 14 years back in 2009. The level of awareness has certainly shifted. Back then people were just talking more about carbon emissions.Yes. And a lot more about looking at the climate crisis from a localized perspective, right? So how would it impact Singapore? How would it impact our coastal shorelines? How would it impact our economy? I think it is a testament really to the growth in awareness and the maturity of said awareness.People in Singapore are now thinking about how climate change affects, not just Singapore. But other small island nations like us around the world. Right. How does climate change impact animals in oceans far away that we may never see? How does climate change impact potential diseases? Right. We're talking just now about the melting of the permafrost, right?And how a lot of ancient zoonotic diseases can be released in the process. Right. So to me, I feel that there is still lots of room for growth. We've come a long way since I first started, about 14 years back, and that's a good reason for optimism because change doesn't happen overnight. And I feel that if we continue in the trajectory that we're headed to, there is every reason to believe that new innovations will come to be.More people will join. Very interesting and meaningful. Say workshops just like climate fresk and digital collage that Thibaut is leading. And hopefully even one day we would have someone in Singapore or from the region that will be able to come up with a moonshot idea that becomes reality that will have an outsized impact on how the world deals with climate change.With regards to my reflection on how climate change and our treatment of it has come to Singapore and we'll head for the next 10, 20 years.years Gael: Thibaut, do you want to add something?Thibaut: I'm French. I have to balance a bit of optimism. It's true that when you retook that idea, I actually did this exercise last year cause I was preparing a masterclass for an MBA program to talk about digital footprint. And when you read articles on straight times CNA, the major newspaper and media in Singapore. Tech is only seen as the solution.Only, it's never considered as something that can actually bring additional problems or that can be done for nothing or that will bring pollution elsewhere, et cetera. So I think we have to look at the bright side and be optimistic, but I strongly believe and mean you just earlier, let's not be blind about it.Let's use our brain, our common sense because it's not so hard to deploy technology for the greater good. And maybe, I mean, from what I see in companies, the major challenge, I would say the best practice I have is to think of the user first. Ian has actually a lot of things to say on this, maybe we'll talk about that during API days, but putting some user-centered approach because there's no one size fits.Of course, especially climate change, sustainability might actually be a good mindset, a good pattern to keep in mind to prevent technology from being leveraged for nothing or for something that is not gonna be very useful. I mean, most of the time, and believe me, I worked in this industry and this IT project, but 99% of the time the project I was working on, on machine learning, our AI, a good Excel document would've been way enough.And sometimes we just want to, for the sake of fanciness, we want to add extra layers of complexity. But let's streamline a bit. Let's take a safe step back and to quote Nate. You also have some great simplification ahead, and it doesn't have to be necessarily sad or bad news.Gael: Oh my God. Quoting Nate Hagens on my show. Now you made my day Thibaut, and actually you also met a wonderful transition. I'm such a big fan of this podcast. I didn't have that much the opportunity to share the wonderful job he's doing with it. But the thanks a lot for bringing the topic on the table and that's a great transition because the question, the last question I wanted to ask both of you was :Would you recommend one or two thought leaders in Singapore or elsewhere, or one or two articles or books for people to grasp a bit more of what is at stake when it comes to digital sustainability? And of course, if it's a bit more focused on Singapore or the area, that will be awesome.But please feel free to share whatever you want..Ian: So on my side, I think that, honestly, Gael, I think you've struck gold with today's session because Thibaut is really one of the people in the sustainability and tech arena that has played an outsized role in the development of our particular niche, in today's context. Right. To give you a bit more context and our listeners as well, the sustainability and tech ecosystem in Singapore is still relatively small, so there aren't exactly that many players.In that regard, Thibaut and his work with digital collage would be one of the key resources for anyone who is in Singapore and listening to this podcast right now. And once you get your first toes right into the idea of digital sustainability, digital collage is a wonderful place to be. On my side, what we are doing at Greenie Web is we are also launching the 28 by 28 program. So don't worry, this is not a Forbes 30 under 30 kind of program. The 28 by 28 program that we're launching at Greenie Web is to celebrate 28 years worth of negotiations regarding the climate crisis. It's basically in celebration of COP 28 this year, and the aim of this project is really to educate students from 28 different institutions around the world about digital sustainability. Thus far, we've already had our very first session in February, we did a hybrid session with the University of Tampere in Finland. We had our second session about a week back with students from the Singapore Management University, SMU, and we're actually having a session this week with faculty members from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. So for this, for this particular question, I'm afraid I don't have particular local resources, local thought leaders, but I think Thibaut and I are good starting points, and if anyone would like to join us, and this is a shout out to anyone listening to this podcast as well, feel free to join because the Singapore ecosystem needs every hand we can get.Thank you.Gael: Beautiful closing words because a call to the arms. Join us for the digital sustainability battle. But thanks a lot, both of you for joining. Actually, it was great to have this. I think it is the first time that we've got a Green IO episode focusing on a specific area. You know, most of the time I love to have cross national guests so that there will be two perspectives, but I think this focus on Singapore was very, very interesting.It's interesting to see how much the governments, the states play a role here. So it's not only in France as if we follow the usual caricature, but anyway. So thanks a lot. Thanks to both of you. I hope that the API Day sustainably track will be an amazing success. At least they gathered very talented people.Starting with both of you. So thanks a lot for joining. It was great to have you on the show, and I hope that this podcast episode will help you also to raise awareness even further of the usual people you've already reached. So thanks a lot again.Thibaut: Thanks, Gael. Thanks a lot. It was an amazing opportunity. And speak soon.Ian: Thanks, Gael.Gael: And that's it. Thank you for listening to Green IO. Make sure to subscribe to the mailing list to stay up to date on your episodes. If you enjoyed this one, feel free to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who could benefit from it. As a nonprofit podcast, we rely on you to spread the word.Last, but not the least. If you know someone who would make a great guest, please send them my way so that we can make our digital word greener one byte at a time.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

What if we unveiled the often overlooked environmental impact of data centers together ?Travel with Gaël Duez to Sweden to meet Life Cycle Management expert Stanislava and to France to meet Benoît, co-founder of Hubblo and NGO Boavizta who works on impact evaluation and energy/material efficiency for businesses.Join us for an eye-opening episode on how data centers can play a crucial role in building a sustainable digital future.Together, we explore:✅ The definition of data centers and their various types, including hyperscalers, enterprise data centers, and colocation data centers.✅ Top tips and insights on how to make your data center operations more eco-friendly and reduce energy consumption.✅ The automation and democratization of impact evaluation.✅ The controversial topic of... cloud!❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, or stay connected in your own way so you never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectStanislava Borisová has a strong background in Life Cycle Assessment, with a Master of Science in Industrial Ecology and extensive experience in assessing the environmental impact of various sectors. After joining the Research Institutes of Sweden, she focused her attention on studying the environmental impact of data centers. She now works as an Expert in Life Cycle at IVL and stays involved in the data center industry through her participation in the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA), among other initiatives. Benoît Petit, co-founder of both Hubblo and the NGO Boavizta, has nearly a decade of experience as a Cloud and SysAdmin engineer. His work is all open-data and open-source, reflecting his values. Benoît's background is primarily in IT infrastructure and cloud, and he founded Hubblo two years ago. The company helps businesses and communities reduce the environmental impact of ICT through impact evaluation and energy and material efficiency.Stanislava’s LinkedInBenoît's LinkedIn📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Stanislava and Benoît’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeHubbloBoavizta’ studies (in FR but easily translatable):https://boavizta.org/en/blog/empreinte-de-la-fabrication-d-un-serveur https://boavizta.org/blog/les-reductions-d-emissions-de-co2-promises-par-les-cloud-providers-sont-elles-realistes And its API & tools: https://boavizta.org/toolsRISE Research Institutes of SwedenThe article that Gael mentioned that is not an article but a podcast : Environment Variables episode discussing the report assessing 7.2 million data centers world-wideÖko-InstitutFraunhofer-GesellschaftCEDaCI project"PCRs under development" - Electronic devices, components and services GitHubBlauer EngelCloud scanner (project in Boavizta) GitLab CI : evaluation of impactCICD tool (related to the SDIA)FinOps : public cloud management disciplineSDIA and its softawereDavid Mytton’s blog Gauthier Roussilhe, researcher in FranceFrançoise Berthoud and her article Le numérique, espoir pour la transition écologique ? 🇫🇷Jean Baptiste Fressoz’s video on "transitions énergétiques" Books : The Best of Times, the Worst of Times Futures from Frontiers of Climate Science by Paul BehrensTowards the Energy of the Future, written by KTH, the University in StockholmGeSIGSMATranscriptGael: You're listening to Green IO , the podcast for responsible technologists, making our digital world greener, one byte at a time. I'm your host Gael Duez, and I invite you to meet a wide range of guests working in the tech industry to help you better understand and make sense of its sustainability issues, and find inspiration to positively impact our digital world.If you like the podcast, please give it five stars and a nice review on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform to spread the word to the millions of people working in the digital sector and now enjoy the show. Hello everyone. In this episode, we go to both France to meet Benoît and Sweden from where we welcome Stanislava to talk about sustainability in the data centers industry. When I first met Benoît in Paris at a cafe having a nice lunch under a cool summer day. I know it's cliche, but it's true. He told me a sentence, which has stuck in my mind since now on. Does anyone actually read the figures in these reports?And he did so because A) I was actually guilty at that time of overconsuming reports on Green IT, field, which I had just discovered, and not paying attention enough to the data and the methodology underlying them. And B), I told myself, whoa, this guy knows what he talks about. And indeed, Benoît having cofounded, both Hubblo and the NGO , after almost a decade working as a Cloud and SysAdmin engineer, knows what he talks about.It's actually pretty easy to double check because everything he produces is open data and open source, two values he cherishes. But we'll come back to this point later on. Stan was introduced to me thanks to Chris Adams, the director of the Green Web Foundation, when we were discussing life cycle assessment. His word, "she is one of the most knowledgeable on this topic".Which makes total sense knowing that after her Master of Science in Industrial Ecology, she joined the Research Institute of Sweden to study, well, LCA applied to data centers. She has now moved toward an expert lifecycle position at IVL, but stays close to the data center field via her involvement in the SDIA, the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance, among other things.Welcome, Stani and Benoît. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.Stanislava: Hi Gael. Thanks for having us.Benoit: Hi.Gael: So before jumping into the nitty gritty of data centers environmental impact, my first question is always about your personal journey in the sustainability area. So Stani, how did you become interested in sustainability and in the sustainability of our digital sector in the first place?Stanislava: So yeah, thank you for asking. I think one of the most powerful experiences that actually led me to join sustainability field was an exposition that I went to with my high school. And I remember hearing about what issues we're facing and how possibly people in 50 years or so would have to ration water because there would not be enough clean water anymore.And I remember that being very scary and very strange to think of, and potentially that was too powerful to do something about at that time. So I sort of let it be and I started studying international business instead. But as I was going through all the courses on accounting and finance and marketing, I thought there was something missing to that and I thought there had to be something more.So that's why I actually selected to follow an elective on sustainable business. And at some point I started to think to myself, yes, this is very interesting. This is how things should go. But at the same time, how do I know that what the companies are saying is actually true? How can I verify that they actually are sustainable and it's not just some claims?So that then led me to the masters that you've already mentioned in the beginning, industrial ecology, where I learned how to quantify this sort of business behavior and impact. And after a few years of working as a consultant in IE in Industrial Ecology, I joined RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, and that's how I got introduced to the data center industry.It was maybe a bit of a coincidence and a happy accident because I was not very involved in that before, but I had worked in technology so there was an interest, and after that I've realized that there is so much, it's such a huge heterogeneous industry, and so much can be done regarding sustainability on so many different levels, and I'm happy to be still involved.Gael: So that's funny because it all started with water, and actually I believe water is a topic we will discuss regarding sustainability in the data center industry. And what about you Benoît, how did you come involved in sustainability and all this work you've done in green IT ?Benoit: I can't remember about a very specific event that drove me there. I think I've worked in IT like many, many other people, not really realizing what was behind in terms of impacts, because I didn't realize at first that our modern society's had such an impact on the environment and that it was really a problem for the future.So I realized that piece by piece very progressively and I changed many things in my personal life so I could feel aligned with what we do for the future. And so I started working on my own thing, actually, I was working on cloud infrastructures at that time, and I felt, okay, if I have to start somewhere, I should start on my own problems, my own impact.So first, how is it big? How could I evaluate this impact? And my first answer was like, "that seemed like super complicated". So I found work from the area, which is a research lab in France. I found some projects about it, but nothing that I could use directly in my own context. So I don't really know why, but rather than staying in the company, I pretty quickly thought that I had to leave and work on this topic as much as I could. And so I started developing a software for measuring the power consumption of servers, of ID servers. Then I happened to be discussing with people who were building an NGO from scratch.So I started discussing with them, and then later I realized that there was some demand for the work I've done on on the software. And then I said to myself, "okay, maybe there could be a business here, so I could work on this topic 100% of my time". So I don't have to find a new job in like one year.And so you have Hubblo, and that's how I came to the topic.Gael: So synchronizing a bit more what you've already started to do in your personal life with what you can do and the expertise you already had in your professional life.Benoit: That was the idea.Gael: Okay. And you know, I spotted very recently a discussion in the climate action tech community about an article that I must admit, I forgot the title, who had quite a lot of debate about the number of data centers worldwide. It was stated that we have already 7.2 millions data centers worldwide and three millions in the US. Some people finding it quite consistent, some people finding it completely crazy. This number. And then it connected me with one of the first topic we discussed with Stani a few months ago actually, which was her ontology.Let's define properly, what is data center, what is a hyperscaler, what is an enterprise data center, colocation data center, et cetera. And I would love Stani, if you could help us set the stage a bit regarding the data center landscape. What are we talking about? What are the main numbers and how would you actually explain this controversy?Regarding the number of data centers, and I will not enter into the other controversy about the number of servers because I think it will take half a day to talk about this one.Stanislava: Well, I'll try to do my best. Indeed. It's very hard to measure and to count how many data centers there are because you can have a data center at your own company, which is a very small closet with a few servers. And technically that counts as a data center. But to sort of distinguish between the main groups of data centers, and of course you can complement what I say.I would say that you have enterprise data centers, which are the data centers owned by the companies themselves to have their own data. Then, there are colocation data centers, which are such data centers that external companies own. And then if you have the need to store your data somewhere, but you don't want to do it in-house, you rent some space and then you just populated with your servers and then you store your data there.And finally you have the so-called hyperscalers, which are the large companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft that own their own data centers, even develop their own servers and technology, rent out parts and are just very big, which is why they're called hyperscalers.Gael: And so depending the definition, the 7.2 millions could make sense or not. I mean, if we pitch ourselves that a data center being, there's massive facilities that you can see from the sky which belongs to Google or Amazon. Obviously there is not 7.2 millions worldwide, but if you include what you've labeled enterprise data centers and, and colocation data centers, do you believe such a number could be correct?Stanislava: Yeah, I think it's possible, especially if we think of all the small data centers, one rack or two racks, I can imagine it could be that much.Gael: Okay, so let's now enter the main topic of our episode today, which is sustainability in data centers. For the sake of clarity, let's put aside cloud for the moment. I mean, obviously everything that we're going to start discussing regarding enterprise data centers or colocation data centers will at some point apply to your cloud service providers.However, you don't interact directly with metrics or the electricity consumption, et cetera.But truth is there are still millions of companies interacting one way or the other with data centers and not having migrated to the public cloud or private cloud, whatever. And my question would be, "what can you concretely do when you are in charge of a data center?"You are head of infrastructure, you're obviously a CTO, CIO. How can you run a greener data center and maybe, I think Stani, once again, you told me once about PUE fatigue, that you were a bit fed up with everything focusing only on PUE. So could you elaborate a bit on what would be your main advices, your main insights on how to green your data center operations?Stanislava: Sure. So maybe just to mention about this. Tiredness of PUE. I think my main reason for not liking it so much, it's because it's become such a marketing tool and it's very easy to manipulate it in order to get as low of a result as you're after. And at the same time, it's just a ratio. So it doesn't actually tell you how much power you are consuming.Instead, I've been thinking really how to classify it. You are in this data center industry and what you can do. So I started with the colocation level to think "what are the options there?" Because the main difference is that you oftentimes do not own the servers. So you cannot do anything regarding lots of the equipment, but what you can do is you can ensure that you have a supply of renewable energy.Ideally, you would be producing it yourself. But if not, then at least you're purchasing it from someone. You could try to motivate your clients, be more efficient. Maybe by providing them data on where the majority of energy consumption takes place in real time so that they can adjust it accordingly. Then of course you can try to reuse waste heat and lots of different applications in industrial symbioses.You could decrease your water use, build your building sustainably because that is something you have a lot of power over, and reuse as much material as possible, not just in the building, but also in the installations that you do have control over. And then if we go further to the enterprise data center, then of course you have much more possibility to green your data center because then of course, you're even running your own servers.And you're probably writing your own program, so then you could still follow the previous steps and at the same time, you could purchase equipment that can be used longer, especially when it comes to servers that contain so many rare earth materials that have a huge impact when it comes to just their mining and production.You could refurbish these servers and then reuse them. What is interesting, I've been hearing how the increase in performance between different generations of servers has decreased. So it's possible to refurbish an older server to an almost same performance as the new generation has, and thus avoid purchasing new.You could try to motivate your IT team to write efficient code.And something that also has a huge impact is to understand what data is essential and needs to be immediately backed up in case something happens and therefore it needs redundancy. And on the other hand, what data can just wait for a few hours if there is a power outage? And it does not need this redundancy because what we see a lot right now is that data centers are building twice or three times the redundancy, meaning that they have twice or three times the amount of the equipment that they need just in case there is an outage of power or something other happens, and that is very important in certain cases. Let's say if you are a data center behind a hospital. Then of course, you don't want to lose anything for any time, but if you're just storing email or some pictures, then maybe you can wait for an hour or so before you power everything up again.When it comes to the hyperscalers, what we already see is that they are trying to even build their own equipment. So I think what they can do on top of all of this is to innovate, make even better equipment and then actually reuse their own equipment. Because what is slightly sad, in my experience is that they oftentimes just donate their own equipment or resell it at some secondary markets.So I think a point of improvement there would be to actually keep it in house, refurbish it, and then use it themselves.Gael: Well that's very interesting because you mentioned not only energy consumption, obviously, which is a big part of the environmental impact, but you started to mention minerals, resources at large, water. Are these all the ingredients that come into what is your area of expertise, which is a life cycle assessment or is it something a bit different?Stanislava: Now, I would say that you expressed it quite correctly. It's all of these bits and pieces and ingredients that all come together and although at the moment there's this obsession with the energy use. Of course, energy use is very important, but I think we shouldn't forget everything else that is involved because at some point those things have a large impact as well.Gael: Okay, thanks. That makes total sense. And Benoît switching to a very operational mode. You recently told me that via Hubblo, you run a full LCA for a CTO, but you are under NDA. So we will not mention neither the company nor him, but could you describe a bit what was the process, more specifically the process involving hosting, infrastructure, et cetera?Benoit: Oh, the process works. Usually if we address this topic at the company level, it might take into account the workplace as well. So most of the time we have like a consultancy role where we try to assess the impact of it as a whole in the company. So this is very a manual process. This is based on LCA principles, we try to isolate the hotspots of impact. So the huge parts of the impact before we can zoom on specific parts and try to have a more fine grain approach. When we realized that the IT services is the most important part, which is not always the case. Then we could assess those impacts, not only by, let's say human made LCAs, but also with software that could help us to automate the process and make the evaluation easier, repeatable, help the company to be as autonomous as possible and not depending on us to reproduce the evaluation. The idea being that they could evaluate the progress. Are they going to the right direction or not? And so one of our objectives is to become as useless as possible in this process. So it really depends, but for sure if IT services are a big part of the topic for this company, then we could help to automate the inventory of the machines, which is very, very often a pain point.Because in theory, all companies have a great CMDB that's up to date with all the informations about all the hardware involved in the service. In practice, that's almost never the case except a few companies that are very, very cautious about that, that put a lot of efforts in this area.Then you have the questions of "what are the impacts of this service?" And Stani mentioned it. When we are in IT, we think a lot about energy. We think a lot about electricity, but that's just a part of the equation. And to illustrate a bit this point based on what Stani said she mentioned like, lifetime of the machines, refresh cycles.That's something we see often, like companies who say, "It's okay, we can reduce our energy consumption just by buying new servers that are less energy consuming for the same workload as the compared to the previous generation of machines". If you just look at energy consumption at final energy consumption, that approach might work maybe.It depends but possible. But as soon as you try to evaluate and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions then this is much more complicated. Not to say that most of the time it doesn't work for very simple reasons: most of the time the greenhouse gas emissions due to the manufacturing of the new machines just jeopardize your attempt to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions on the long run because manufacturing has a huge part. And the impact of usage may be not that important, if you look at the manufacturing part. So this is especially true in countries where you are lucky to have a low carbon intensity regarding electricity that you consume. Of course, each phase will be much more important, countries where the carbon electricity is higher. These kind of questions and also how we assess the other impacts, the other operating impacts; and Stani mentioned minerals and metals. That's one of them.Gael: Going back to the carbon emitted during the manufacturing phase of the equipments, I believe it is called embedded carbon. Where do you get the information?Benoit: Yeah, there's a whole topic there. For a long time, it has been that you, you had only one choice, which was do you have access to a database where you have impact, factors so constant that you could apply in your calculations to estimate this part of the impact? This is still the case, but I feel like the field is evolving.Piece by piece, because before you were forced to pay license fees to get those data. That was not the best scenario to democratize impact evaluation and involving companies to take action. So that's one of the topic we worked on in Boavizta. And the first attempt we made was to aggregate all the manufacturing impact data we could get from the manufacturers.So it takes the form of an open database now. Basically we have some scripts scoring the manufacturer's webpages to get the right PDF files, that's as simple as that. We aggregate the data in the database that you can query. So that's interesting and it gives you some insights about like- let's say- orders of magnitude of the impact of manufacturing a server or a laptop or a screen and so on.But the thing is that you can't really use that database for evaluation. Because from one project to another, you take 24 inch screen in manufacturer A and 24 inch screen in manufacturer B. The methodologies to evaluate the impact are most of the time not the same.So it could be almost the same product. You could have different impacts and sometimes the differences are huge. So it's not a good basis, I guess, for evaluation. So we work on on another project, which is an API, where we try to have an approach where you are less dependent on databases.And how we do that: it's based on scientific papers mostly from Öko-Institut and Fraunhofer Institute in Germany where you can have the impact of one semiconductor, the smallest units in terms of manufacturing IT components. Because it's about what's inside the component, you can then calculate what's the impact of the component, and then if you can calculate the impact of several components, you can calculate the impact of a machine and so on.That's an open source database as well. That's open source APIs. So how do you calculate? At some point you need data. At least, what is a bit changing now is that you kind of have- it's not perfect yet- but you kind of have access to data without being a consultancy company that has a lot of money to put in acquiring those data.Gael: But are you telling me that the only source of open source, open data? Actually the only provider of open data when it comes to embedded carbon is now Boa Vista with the IPI.Benoit: No, I wouldn't say that because I don't necessarily know all the initiatives on the topic. I discussed a bit with people from the CEDaCI project or who I think have a lot of interesting data as well I didn't see how the data is publicized, but that's an example.And I think there are other projects on the run. So no, the idea is not to say, "hey that's the only way to get open access data and free license". But to say that it's one of the huge topic, at least, we encourage other organizations to provide data.We encourage manufacturers to open more data. Because in the beginning , that's a bit silly, that you have to build up that kind of project on your own. If you have proper regulation, you would have manufacturers providing data on methodologies that we could understand or that we could verify in some way.And then we would be super happy and it would be way easier to evaluate the impact of ICT because we would have data from the ground up. So of course it's not the manufacturer itself who does the evaluation. It's a company specialized in that topic. But it's a company that because it is working with the manufacturer has direct access to all the proxy metrics and insights. It needs to make a proper evaluation, which is much harder when you try to do it afterwards. You have to work with aggregated data that you don't know the source.Gael: Kind of retro engineering, the carbon footprint of an equipment once it has been built.Benoit: Yeah, that's a bit about that.Gael: Okay. And that being said, Benoît I have one last question because there are two things that you say that were really music to my ears. The first one being a bit selfish is when you mention that you want to be as useless as possible as soon as possible when you work with a company. And I was like, yeah that's exactly what I say to my clients when I do consulting with them: "I want you to make me redundant as much as possible, though". It's more on the green IT strategy or digital sustainability strategy. But that's something that I was like: you sometimes look at me and say, ";why?", and I'm very happy that you got the same pitch because I really believe that this is what a good consultant should be.Looking at it, become redundant as soon as possible. But that being said, sorry. It was another topic that I really loved is "the case for automation". And you mentioned that you try to automate measure as much as possible. Could you drop some names or give us an example of how you do that?Benoit: Yeah. What we try to do with Boavizsta API, you can find it on GitHub is great to evaluate the impact of manufacturing, especially of the servers. But it could be some other context as well. And on top of that, we build several tools. So there is a tool called Bow Agents, which proposes to scan the hardware of a machine.You ask the right questions to the API and it aggregates the manufacturing impact of this machine as a monitoring metric. So you can get that in your monitoring tools as you use day-to-day basis. I mean, every company running IT services, they have monitoring. This agent is also connected to another tool which you blow tool this time, but is as always, it's open source Apache to license, which is a scaffold. I think I mentioned this in the beginning of the discussion. It's about measuring the power, energy consumption of servers, the agent, because it's connected to both the API for manufacturing and scaffold for the usage phase it can aggregate the impact numbers of the machine on almost the full life cycle because we still lack good methodologies and data for the end of life, for example. That's something that's missing. On top of that, there is also other project, there's a project in Boavizta called Cloud scanner that will scan your AWS account for all the EC2 instances and give you an evaluation of the impact including manufacturing, so use and manufacturing. This is also based on the API. So that's really an ecosystem. That's a toolbox. And depending on your context, depending if you are on-premise machines, on cloud services or something else. You could select one tool or another, or several of them. We are also working on continuous integration chains for development team. So you can have in your GitLab CI evaluation of impact for the products you are developing from one release to another. You seem to have reduced the potential impact of your application when it'll be in production or if you have made things worse.So that's an example. That's the kind of thing we have.Gael: It relates to run the more efficient code that Stani mentioned at the very beginning of the episode. This CICD tool, is it the one related to the SDIA? Benoit: absolutely. That's the project we are building with the S D I A. Boavizta in SDIA talks a lot to each other because we really like what they do and I think they like what we do. And so we work on this topic together. I know people that Stani knows, but we discovered that thanks to your podcast.Gael: This is why I love running this podcast. And Stani do you have maybe a success story or just an example of how using this tool has helped developers or I don't know, an agile team or whatever to reduce their footprint?Stanislava: Unfortunately. I do not really have any success stories because I think it's pretty small scale so far. But definitely there is a growing interest in knowing the impact of computing and doing something about it. It's just that we're at a pretty early stage, I would say. Gael, could I mention something?I started thinking of this water when Benoît was talking, but then I didn't wanna jump in . So when it comes to the water usage and the WUE water usage effectiveness that Benoît has touched upon. I think one of the problems in the ratio itself is that it doesn't tell you how much water is consumed in total.And then similarly - and this is also linked to the LCA methodology - is that even if you knew how much water they consume in total. It's very hard to link it to the location, the region where this happens in all these assessments, because maybe using a huge quantity of water in one country would not be such a problem because they have an abundance of water.While using it somewhere with little water available could be rather critical. So that's another problem that we face. Gael: Localization is key. Let's save the last part of the discussion to talk about cloud, and I could be a bit the devil advocate here or a bit provocative saying, "yeah, but why don't we move everything into the cloud?" Because if I read Google, Amazon, or Microsoft newspaper, detailing the very same environmental impact that the two of you mentioned during this episode, it seems to be way more efficient to mutualize everything in big public cloud or hybrid cloud or whatever, rather than running data centers on-premise or even colocation data center. Is it something that you agree with or not?Stanislava: Well, if I can start, I would say I don't really agree with it because at the end of the day, a cloud is not really a cloud in the sky. It's actually located somewhere physically. So you can't just move everything to the cloud because still it needs to be built somewhere and it needs to be operated somewhere.What I have read from one of these hyperscalers was that they achieve around 90% emission reduction by moving to cloud. But then when you look into that further, it's because they're comparing this with some average data center or low efficiencies and pretty bad environmental impact.I think it's not really that a cloud is so good, it's just that they have made the data centers that operate this cloud more efficient. You could stay on a physical data center elsewhere, not on the cloud, and just improve your metrics and still have the same impact then as this great cloud.Benoit: To jump on this one, I kind of agree with Stani and we wrote blog posts on the Boavizta blog, especially on the papers that hyperscalers are showing off regarding the potential of impact reduction when you move your workload from an on-premise data center to the cloud. And yeah, the numbers are calculated on very advantageous scenarios.But then there are several viables in this equation, the cloud in theory and sometimes in practice, can have good parts good sides:if you mutualize resources for more services as you mentioned, thanks to the APIs -and the thing that everything is an API in the cloud-, you can use resources exactly when you need.That's something that could be done in a non-premise data center, but it's sometimes harder because you need, you need more R&D and more workforce to build tools that make you control the resources as finally as it's made in the cloud. This advocates for the cloud because you could often see on-premise data centers having several tents or hundreds of servers running 24 /7 because they're waiting for the Black Friday.That's something that you shouldn't have in the cloud because you have all the tools necessary to just consume those resources when you need them, when the traffic goes higher. But that's the technical parts. On the other side, moving the workload from on-premise to the cloud, most of the time it doesn't happen in one night.So you have kind of a double run. Your service still runs in the on-premise data centers until it's fully satisfying in the cloud. So you have two services sometimes. If it lasts long you could just double your impact. So not really what you were looking for in the first place. But let's say "okay, it's not an issue anymore, we are super effective in moving the workloads in the cloud". Thing is that there is a very different approach from consuming resources in non-premise data centers to consuming them in the cloud. In non-premise data centers, you have order new machines, if you want to deploy any projects. In the cloud, you just have to click or make an API call.But that's super fast, pretty easy. I've already been in companies where when we looked at the bills at the end of the months, you had clusters of data management that were accounting for 15 K for the months, and it was just a dev environment that was forgotten.So this hardly happens in a non premise data center because deploying resources is much harder. So you remember about it. That's the full story of FinOps for sure. But in terms of environmental impacts, it has some importance as well. Today, I guess we can do some evaluations of service on the cloud.That happens. We do it, but we do it on a fixed picture. It's like TODAY the impact of the service is THIS . But it's very hard to estimate and to show projections on: "okay but now that you are in the cloud, your service will inflate, it'll consume more and more resources because people working in your company will have access to those resources very easily, and it'll open the door for many projects". Some of them would be very useful, but maybe you would also have new projects just because you can do them. So yeah, that's a full question. That's, in my opinion, goes way beyond the only evaluation about impacting the cloud and what's the difference between a cloud provider and let's say a more classic hosting scenery.Gael: So once again, a multi-criteria approach is needed to answer properly the question. There is no like simple and straightforward answer.Benoit: Yeah, multi-criteria so that you don't shift impacts from one area to another. That's one thing, but it's also about consequential approach and consequential analysis and not just analyzing the today's picture of the impact. And that's maybe the hardest part. I think, maybe even harder than having a proper multi-criteria approach.This dynamic view of the impact and the relation between company's activity and what the impact will be in the future.Stanislava: If I may add I think what is also very important with these studies and impact and multi-criteria assessments and so on is to be very transparent because we have seen lots of new reports or new marketing strategies being published, but they almost never mention what their assumptions are.And of course the results are gonna be very different if you assume that you are consuming only green energy and you are very efficient. In comparison to if you maybe looked at the slightly more pessimistic scenario.Gael: Thank you so much, Stani. Because actually, I realized that the way we were discussing transparency issues, both regarding the access to open data, but also the access to what methodology has been used, et cetera. I actually wanted to ask you this question and also thanks a lot for bringing this topic before we close the podcast. And could you maybe provide just one example of an assumption that if you change it, we'll change dramatically the result, something that you've noticed in your life as a researcher.Stanislava: Well, for instance, just selecting the source of energy would have a very big impact. Even if it was green energy, it could have different impact if it was in different countries. Or for instance, if we look at the colocation data centers, and it's quite popular to be examining the impact of the building.You know, you just take a flow of concrete in these different databases and if you know nothing about it, there are so many different flows to choose from, which represent different manufacturing practices, different standard of concrete. Maybe you have some that is more durable or not, and the difference in results can be huge.They can be tenfold, if not even higher. That's why it's very important to be able to rather easily find these main assumptions, how their study was built, just to understand what the results actually mean and if they're applicable to you or not, and if you would reproduce the same study, if you would get the same results or not.Gael: Tenfold. That was the kind of order of magnitude that I wanted to know and to make sure that I got it right. That huge impact where regarding your methodology and the assumptions underlying it. Okay, so thanks a lot, both of you. You shared already tons of insights, a lot of references.I believe this is gonna be one of the top five, if not top three episode when it comes to the length of the episode notes and all the references that will be put in it. Still, do you have two last references, thought leaders something that you want to share with the listeners to know a bit better, to understand, a bit better about the data center sustainability issues or potential solutions, or even in a broader way on the sustainability topic.Stanislava: Maybe in a broader way I would suggest reading, since I really like reading books there are two that I can recommend. The first one is called The Best of Times, the Worst of Times Futures from Frontiers of Climate Science by Paul Behrens. And what I specifically like about it is that it looks at different topics from both the optimistic and pessimistic perspective and it gives you lots of references.And the second one . As someone who really likes to understand how things work, there has been a book written by KTH, the University in Stockholm, called Towards the Energy of the Future, and it tries to explain sort of what the challenges are, what is needed in a pretty low level so that anyone can read it and understand.Benoit: Maybe so not specifically on the cloud but on the impacts of IT and its role, reshaping our societies for a world that stabilizes at 1.5 degrees or less. I mentioned the work of Gauthier Roussilhe, a researcher in France, the report he made on challenging the assumptions of positive impact of ICT on the environment.Especially there are two reports:one from GeSI, the other from GSMA. So it's interesting to see that there are very well written papers, peer reviewed papers of amazing quality that nobody knows about. But papers from companies who have a clear and evidence interests in showing one side of the story has echoes on top of the government.I think it's a real key thing to understand.Gael: Thanks a lot. That was a lot. I think you might even be a direct challenge to the episode with Chris Adams, where we had, I don't know, 25 references. I think it was a full episode dedicated to, what shall I read? What shall I learn about the digital sustainability topics? But the good news as you mentioned, Benoît, is that we have more and more literature.The topic is getting traction and hopefully the scientific based papers will get more traction rather than low quality- scientifically speaking communication papers. I want to thank both of you. We covered a lot actually. I think we could have spent another hour deep diving on, you know, codes, green coding, how you do an ACA really like hands-on approach, et cetera.But that will be a course, rather than a podcast episode. Thanks a lot both of you .That was awesome to have you on the show.Stanislava: Thank you too.Benoit: Thank you for having us.Gael: And that's it. Thank you for listening to Green IO. Make sure to subscribe to the mailing list to stay up to date on your episodes. If you enjoyed this one, feel free to share it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who could benefit from it. As a nonprofit podcast, we rely on you to spread the word.Last, but not the least. If you know someone who would make a great guest, please send them my way so that we can make our digital word greener one byte at a time.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

Did you know that 81% of energy will be consumed before you turn your laptop on for the first time ? 🤯Gaël Duez travels to New Mexico, USA and Dublin to meet Katie Singer - acclaimed author of “A silent electronic spring” - and Gerry Mc Govern - well-known author of “World Wide Waste” - for an episode about the dark truth of the data tsunami and its catastrophic environmental effects. 🌍Join us for a mind-blowing episode where we explore the dire need for sustainable data practices, and how we can take action to build a better future for our planet.Together, we discussed :✅ The high energy consumption involved in the production, consumption, and disposal of digital devices and data✅ The relationship between efficiency in technology and its negative impact on the environment✅ The importance of reducing waste as the primary strategy for mitigating the environmental impact of digital technology❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guests and connectOur first guest, Katie Singer lives in New Mexico, USA, and she has researched and written about technology's impacts on nature for more than 25 years. She spoke about the Internet's footprint at the United Nations' 2018 Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation ; and, in 2019, on a panel with the climatologist Dr. James Hansen. Her reports explore the ecological impacts and fire hazards of solar PVs, industrial wind, battery storage and e-vehicles. Her most recent book is An Electronic Silent Spring.Our second guest, Gerry Mc Govern is based in Dublin, Ireland, is the founder and CEO of Customer Carewords, and developed the Top Tasks customer experience management model after 15 years of research. His clients include Microsoft, Cisco, NetApp, Toyota, IBM, and multiple governments. Gerry is also a highly-regarded speaker and author, with expertise in digital customer experience and design. His latest, World Wide Waste, is about how digital is killing the planet, and what to do about it. The Irish Times has described Gerry as one of five visionaries who have had a major impact on the development of the Web. Katie’s LinkedInGerry's LinkedIn📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Katie and Gerry’s sources and other references mentioned in this episodeKatie’s book : An Electronic Silent Spring: Facing the Dangers and Creating Safe LimitsKatie’s website with the reports Gerry’s book : World Wide WasteArticle 2 of the Antenna Law gives SUBTEL : prohibits the installation of cellular sites near “public or private schools, nurseries, kindergartens, hospitals, clinics, urban premises with high voltage towers, nursing homes, or other sensitive areas of protections so defined”“Data storage & dark data” by Tom Jackson & Ian R. Hodgkinson both from Loughborough University who put a light on the cost of storage List of substance in a smartphone (from Katie’s website)Greenwashing law in FranceLog off movement in the USDigital CollageThe Big Semiconductor Water ProblemMelvin Vopson : Gerry’s reference to this physicist who estimate the physical weight of data W. Stanley Jevons, “The Coal Question,” 1865 : https://energyhistory.yale.edu/library-item/w-stanley-jevons-coal-question-1865Ifixit.com (mentioned by Katie)“Complicit,” a documentary by Heather White and Lynn Zhang, about the effects of benzene exposure to smartphone assembly workers: https://www.complicitfilm.org/  "This is HCD" podcast by Gerry ScullionTranscriptGael: Hello everyone for this episode. I have the pleasure to welcome Katie Singer and Gerry Mc Govern to talk about the unsustainable data growth and all the environmental impacts that comes with it. Kati Singer lives in New Mexico, USA. She has researched and written about technologies on nature for more than 25 years.She spoke about the internet footprint at the United Nations 2018 Forum and Science. That's a long time before this topic became trendy. In 2019, she spoke on the panel with the climatology Dr. James Hansen, about the very same topic, so pretty consistent. Her reports explore the ecological impacts and fire hazard of solar photovoltaic, industrial wind, battery storage and e-vehicules. Her more recent book is An Electronic Silence Spring. Yes. Kind of the mirror of the silent Spring written, how long was it? Like 40 years ago? A very interesting book to read, and her websites include www.OurWeb.tech and www.ElectronicSilentSpring.com. Gerry is based in Dublin Island and he holds the MMEITGIOP Worldwide title with six victories.And if you don't know what this title is, it's a very important title to every listeners to the Green IO podcast because this is the most mentioned experts in the Green IO podcast, MMEITGIOP. And that being said that's absolutely true that Gerry has been mentioned, contacted minimum six times by August.So that is to say how much his book worldwide Waste had an impact on the digital sustainability community. So I'm truly delighted to have him with Katie today with us. But Gerry has done other things as well. He's been working on the Web content and data issues since 1994. He's a highly regarded speaker.He has spoken on such issues around 40 countries. He has written other books as well, and maybe the most known one is Top Task because Gerry has developed a top task methodology, a research method to understand what truly matters to customers. And I believe he has worked for many, maybe 500 companies, but we could name Toyota, Cisco, Microsoft, the Word health organization governments, US, UK, Dutch, Canadian, you name it.And maybe something that we truly share, at least many listeners. We truly share that the Irish Times has described him as one of the five visionaries who have had a major impact on the development of the Web. And I have to admit that I believe so after reading Worldwide Waste. So welcome to both of you.I'm delighted to have two book writers who had such a massive impact on our industry, as you did. Welcome to the show. Very happy to have you here tonight for me, today for Gerry, and this morning for Katie.Gerry: It's great to be here, Gael and great to be here with, uh, Katie as well.Katie: Thank you. Thank you for having both of us.Gael: First of all, the two questions I love to ask to my guest is, what did I miss in your bio and how did you become interested in digital sustainability in the first place? So maybe Katie, if you want to share your view on it.Katie: Sure. In 1997, I learned about the Telecommunications Act, which passed the US Congress in 1996 and Section 7 0 4 states that no health or environmental concern may interfere with the placement of a cellular antenna. This law passed internationally. As far as I know, most countries have a similar law. And so that means that if a corporation wants to install a cell tower in your neighborhood, if you say, well, we're concerned about our health, or we're concerned about the environmental impact of the antenna, that will not help you.That's not part of the discussion. You're not allowed to have that there, and I was shocked when I learned that law. So I started learning more about telecommunications and what we're doing, and here I am!Gael: Yes, absolutely. A fair point. I've never seen the issue of this law with such an angle, but that's very interesting. Like nature, starting with human health is not part of the discussion. A pretty potent argument. And what about you, Gerry?Gerry: Top task is something I've spent most of my career doing, and it's about helping organizations focus on what's important particularly in relation to data and content. And I noticed that with practically every organization I worked with, that somewhere in the region of 90% of the data was always poor quality or useless.There were a few tasks that were really important in an environment, and then there was huge quantities of stuff that had very little use and very little importance. And that it slowly began to get me thinking about why do we create so much data waste and why do we store so much data waste?So that was the seeds of the journey. But I suppose the, the, the most powerful trigger was hearing Greta Turnberg saying, you know,"we are in a crisis. Act like you're in a crisis.";Gael: And you did, you did write worldwide Waste. Was it the next logical step ?.Gerry: That was the next slide. Yeah. I was kind of thinking, you know, semi coming to retirement or I didn't need to work quite as hard as I had in the past or stuff like that. I was looking to try and do something maybe a bit more socially conscious. But I didn't think, I thought, you know, "oh, digital, it's green and, you know, it's, don't print this, you know, send an email".The whole language of digital has always been somehow immaterial, you know, the cloud, et cetera. And then the more I researched it, the more I discovered that digital tells a huge, enormous lie to the world that it is an incredibly energy consuming, incredibly wasteful and incredibly toxic.Gael: Absolutely, and maybe that leads me to the first question because you've already mentioned several impacts and that just goes beneath the "delete your email stuff." So maybe to Katie, because of your very broad view on environmental issues, both from digital but also electronic equipment, et cetera. If our goal is to find substantial ways to limit data growth and reduce Digitalizations ecological impact, what do we need to know about the internet so that we are all on the same page for the forthcoming discussion?Katie: Yes, I'm taking in this big question.Gael: Yeah, that's a big one. Sorry.Katie: It's the question we need. I have focused on learning about three places where the internet guzzles energy, water, extractions and generates toxins and worker hazards and fire hazards. I break things down into three issues. One is manufacturing, one is with access networks, and the third is with data centers.I've learned that AI is another major guzzler, and honestly, I'm just learning about that and I'm really interested to hear what Gerry says about that and how we're creating data that's essentially useless, and that is another major guzzler of what we're taking from the earth in order to have this conversation, for example.So if I go back to the three things that I have focused on, and I start with manufacturing, if you take a laptop, And you look at its cradle to grave energy use, 81% will be consumed before the end user turns the laptop on for the first time. The remaining 19% of lifetime energy use is divided between operating the laptop and discarding it.Discarding or recycling are also energy intensive processes. So manufacturing anything is an enormous energy guzzler. We're taking water and oars from the earth. In order to do this, we're manufacturing lots of chemicals and the vast majority of toxic waste happens during those processes before the end user turns it on for the first time.That's manufacturing. Then with access networks, they're also major energy guzzlers, and as we keep building out new access networks, we're not necessarily getting rid of the other ones. So for example, we've still got 4G going while we're building out 5G and making plans for 6 G. All of the access networks also need manufacturing, and they have batteries and cables and they need lots of energy to manufacture and to operate.And then 5G, for one example, can be fantastic within a factory where robots can communicate with each other as they're building something. Manufacturing something, but we don't need 5G as a public network. We can use what we've already got with 4G, but we're not thinking in those terms. We're not looking to keep using what we have in the public network.Okay, now let me go to data centers. Data centers are, they can be so large that you can see them from outer space, from floor to ceiling. They're covered with servers, with computers, and 40% of their energy cost goes to air conditioning because the computers need to keep cool. And of course, the cooling systems also need water.Those are three things we absolutely need in order to do this podcast. My focus has been on helping people like me, and I am really, I was not designed for technology . But I can, I can help people like me to see what we are asking of the earth in order to do our daily lives. One of the things that I've laid out is: I've counted about 125 substances in one smartphone, and most computers have at least that many substances involved.I've listed them and my dream is that every user will research the supply chain of one substance. Once that happens, once people begin to learn the true costs of what it takes to use computers and access networks, I think our use changes. Our relationship to technology changes. We realize what we're asking in order to do these activities.Gael: So three areas, end user equipment, access network, and data centers. It was beautifully said, I could have listened to someone finishing the facilitation of a digital collage workshop, with you know, the ecological rucksac for manufacturing, et cetera, et cetera. The ecological rucksac I mean, I would say the landscape of environmental impact having been set up by Katie.Gerry, could you name the primary areas of data traffic and where it's increasing and why? Yeah, why do we see such massive data growth, around the world?Gerry: Well, to some degree it's a bit like the chicken and the egg. We create the tools, the data centers, the computers that allow us to create data. And then we create that data with those tools and we fill those data centers and part of data growth has been driven by basically cheap processing and cheap storage, which we are beginning to come to limits in relation to that.Specific data growth at the moment would be very much dominated by video. About 80% of internet traffic is video. And then we have new generations of formats. We are going from 2K to 4K to 8K, you know a four minute video in eight k could be like 2.4, 2.5 gigabytes in comparison to maybe, you know, a hundred megabytes or 70 megabytes for the same video in a standard format that we would be used to watching on YouTube.So we've got the formats. So-called becoming richer, even though we can't see the difference. I mean the human eye cannot see the difference above 2K if it's watching something on a smartphone or on a laptop. But the weight impact is huge. So we've moved more and more to visual communication and visual entertainment.And that is having a really massive impact. But, data is exploding everywhere. We're sending something like 400 billion. Emails every, every day. So, you know, we send the same amount of letters every year. Everything digital is exploding. But videos are a particular driver. But then we already have the Internet of things and all these automated systems.If we get things like self-driving cars, they will be creating gigabytes of data or a second telling the system where they are. They'll have hundreds and hundreds of sensors. So all of these devices that we're building the internet of things or self-driving or artificial intelligence are slightly, it feeds off the data, but it also creates a lot of data as well.So we've got an absolute tsunami of data that the vast majority of organizations I've dealt with have, they don't even know half of the data that they have that it even exists. And the other half of data they've essentially given up on any rigorous way to manage it. Data has gone outta control and you could kind of hide that reasonably, well historically by saying, you know, by just storing it in these big data centers, but there's only a limit that you can, you know, you can fill crap data into data landfills.There's even limits to the amount of crap that we can create without resulting consequences.Gael: I believe that the latest study, I mean you mentioned in your book something like 80% or 90% of the data that was not used at all after being stored. We didn't learn from the past. I mean, at the beginning, data storage was cheap. That was kind of a free lunch. Now we can see some effect that this data grows has on organization and still, we are still mainly storing data that we will not use.So why ? That's a big question actually.Gerry: Because it's easy, because the people who run or chief information Officers or whatever they don't see it as their responsibility. They're responsible for keeping the equipment up and running. So the vast majority of IT managers are chief information officers. We do not see data quality as their responsibility.And in other environments where they're in marketing or there's this culture of, you know, "all data is potentially useful". So let's keep as much as we can, cause you never know sometime in the future it might be useful and it's easier and it's cheaper. I mean, you don't need very skilled people to store data.So you can have less expensive employees if they don't have to think. They just have to store stuff to actually decide what's important requires skill, intelligence, and in many instances, real wisdom and long term experience. Organizations like to fire most of those people because they're too expensive.I mean, the whole movement of the Web was: "let's get rid of the editor". You know, we don't need editors anymore and let's just publish everything. So we've had this culture that it's cheap. We store everything. You don't have to think about these. And there's always technology. The latest one is artificial intelligence.You know, that's going to figure it all out for us, which it is, absolutely not because if you bring AI to a dump and you feed it in a dump, you get garbage AI. And that's what we are getting and will get because it's the old computer saying garbage in, garbage out. Essentially we are feeding AI and garbage.We are feeding AI with prejudice. We are feeding AI and bias. We are feeding AI and all sorts of dodgy data. And in fact, we don't even know what data we are feeding AI because as you say, I don't like using the term dark data, but the data that the organization doesn't even know exists. Well, this is the data that they're feeding AI. They don't even know what data they're feeding AI in the process. AI is going to become an increasingly dangerous aspect in society for multiple reasons. One of them is that the humans who should be controlling it in some way have essentially given up on the idea of professionally managing data. So data is out of control because it's too expensive to do it properly.Gael: We say data growth is an issue because we tend to store too much and at some point we might reach some limits, whether it's environmental limits or even physical limits, but it, am I correct that the issue for you is not that much about data storage, but that reaching some limits, but data storage, unsustainable data grows in this crazy amount of data being stored, being an issue for humanity, for the way its organization works for the way the human brain works.Am I correct?Gerry: We need quality data. I mean, it can help us make good decisions. If only 1% of your data is quality and 99% of it is poor quality, it reduces your ability to discover and process and analyze that quality data. So there's an old saying, what do you get when you cross a fox?With a chicken you get a fox, cause the fox eats the chicken. And if you imagine the chicken being the quality data and the fox being the crap data for a moment, and you know, this idea that it's okay that we're producing tons and tons of waste. We are just going to come up with clever and clever ways to store this waste.It's an incredibly cynical view of the world and also efficiency has never, ever, ever, ever led to energy reduction. Efficiency has only ever, ever led to energy explosion. So this, these smart techies claiming that they're somehow making things better with their efficient solutions. Every single time they make things five or six or 10 times worse because they just encourage.Bad habits and they just say, you don't have to worry about the waste. But it all builds up because as clever as they are, there's still 70 million servers out there right this moment storing this crap. And each one of those servers caused between one and two tons of co2 to manufacture.And Katie, you know, is an incredible resource for all the physical impacts of all this stuff. The tech industry is always jammed. Tomorrow they create this enormous mess and then they're always telling us about how they've got something in the lab that's gonna solve this mess.And then when it creates a five times bigger mess, they say, “oh, we've got this new technology that's going to solve this mess”. We wouldn't have a climate crisis, we wouldn't have a biodiversity crisis if we didn't have a driving advance in technology.Katie: Efficiency increases energy use. It increases extractions, it increases water use, it increases toxic waste. We learned this in 1862 when a British economist named William Jevons published the Coal Question, and he realized when we had trains and we had factories that were making, making cast iron pots and denim jeans, things that people were needing that they used to make in their own cottages.And then when we mass produce them, we could deliver them far and wide. It was much less expensive for people to buy a pair of pants than to make the fabric. When you do that, when you lower the cost of something, then many more people can buy that product.And you've got this whole infrastructure, like the trains, like the factories, like the fabric makers you know, where are you getting the cotton? All that stuff comes in, in mass quantities. And so as things become less expensive for the consumer, they will buy more. And that means more factories, more energy for the trains, more energy for building the trains and the train tracks you just keep generating more.The same principle applies with computers, and I'm, you know, calling a smartphone a computer. It's a luxury portal for accessing the internet. Same with an iWatch. As things get smaller and less expensive, it just means more extractions, more water use, more toxic waste more infrastructure.And then sure, everyone can download more and more videos, but you see how we're just perpetuating increased use. I also have a question for Gerry. When you said that we're going now to video, that's my understanding is it's more highly defined, but the human eye can't tell the difference. Why are we doing that?I guess this is also an efficiency question. I don't know if it's an efficiency question actually, but why, why are we doing that? Why are we making videos with such high definition if the human eye can't tell the difference?Gerry: Well, a couple of reasons, Katie. One is just marketing to have a new fancy feature that your neighbor doesn't have, and a reason to pretend that you're better than your neighbor. Another is the essential pact between software and hardware. Software says: "Make bigger hardware and we'll make bigger software then", then they'll have to buy newer versions of your hardware and then they'll have to buy newer versions of our software and we'll all make a lot of money together.The bigger the weight of software and data, the more it means that you cannot use the old hardware, so you have top grade. So it's part of the planned obsolescence model. Most features that are released are irrelevant, not useful, and not important. But you know, it's how we sell more stuff.But it's the software, hardware industry part. And, you know, everyone's in it broadly as well. The TV industry, you know, 8K, it's a new fake feature to sell in the process. You know, that's an unfortunate world. We're in enough of creating fake features to sell new products in the planned obsolescence model.Gael: That's a very systemic blend that we are into. I think we've got a pretty clear picture of all the impacts now and how everything relates to each other. My question now to both of you actually, and that will be three questions, is what can we do, and especially what can I do as an individual?What can I do if I run or if I have some kind of management capacity in an organization? And what should governments do about it?Katie: So for individuals, I really started seeing the world in a different way when I learned how transistors are manufactured. And then I got the idea of this list, which Gael I can send so you can post a link to my website where people can see this list of substances in one smartphone. If every user traces the supply chain of one substance, then we'll begin to have informed users.And once that happens, I think we can make more informed decisions. I also gave myself the goal of reducing my overall consumption by 3% per month. I was with 3% cause I thought, okay, I can do this. So I stopped using a dryer for drying clothes and I got a laundry line in, I think in some places in the world, this is completely obvious, but I'm a US American and I needed to get a laundry line.I started finding ways where I can reduce my consumption. And then I got a new website. And so , I canceled my reduction by getting a new website. I'm seeing this, that it's not easy, there's no quick fix, but I'm in the conversation and that's valuable to me. As for organizations and also individuals, I've said for a while, don't upgrade for at least four years.So every time you buy new, it's like what Gerry was saying. We wanna stick with keeping older equipment in good repair as long as possible. Ifixit.com is a wonderful organization that has free manuals explaining how to repair goods. That's ifixit.com and certainly organizations have clout there cause they're buying computers in big numbers.And so if they delay buying new, that's great. Also when an organization buys something in large numbers, they can insist to the manufacturer that they wanna see fair trade. They want to see that the people all along the supply chains have been fairly paid and fairly treated. That's another way that organizations can influence what's going on.Another idea is how we introduce computers to children. I used to encourage people to not let children use any kind of electronic device until they have mastered reading, writing, and math on paper. Now, a lot of babies are using screens before they have speech, and what that does is make them not know how to do basic activities like communicating without an electronic interface.And that, of course, sets us up as a society for people not knowing how to function without an electronic interface. So looking systemically, you can see how we're just creating this tremendous dependence on digitalization, on computers, on screens, and we're doing it without awareness of what we're asking from the earth, how it's affecting our social health, our mental health, our physical health.So really what we need to change, what we need to look at is our thinking.Gael: Yeah, I really, really love your angle of attack cause usually when I ask about what the government should do, it's, “oh, we should, you know, have some kind of legislation or put new lows in place, new regulations, whatever, et cetera”; and you've got a very refreshing approach, which is: but let's start with the basics.Children. If we build a new generation of humans, highly dependent on machines and especially tech machines, IT machines, then we are doomed . I really love your answer. Can I ask Gerry the same three questions? And, please, Gerry, when it comes to the organization factor, I've got some kind of two sub-questions.How would you relate what an organization should do to manage its data growths with everything you've done with the top tasks framework? That's my number one question. And sub question number two would be the current movement around data governance DM book, et cetera, do you think it can help or not ?Gerry: Okay, no problem. From a personal point of view, I think. We need to increase the data free times during the day and everything Katie said there, I agree a hundred percent and particularly in relation to children. But, you know, reduce the amount of times we're either creating data and consuming data, just be quiet for a while as well, and go for a walk without your phone. You know what? Extraordinary thing, you know, nature is beautiful. We are so extraordinarily lucky to be born at this moment in time on this extraordinary, amazing planet that is a million times better than the best virtual reality that will ever be created.You know, this reality is amazing and we should recognize it a lot more. And all we need is our eyes and our ears and skin to feel this extraordinary reality that we can actually enjoy. So we should do that. Then when we're at the point of creating, either taking a photo again, pausing and saying, you know, is it wise or is it the right time to actually do it?You know, waiting for the right moment to take the photo rather than, you know, taking 50 photos and hoping that one of them will be the right moment. Because then the right moment gets smothered with the 49 photos, cause you're not gonna look at overdose photos most of the time. But another issue is that after you've created something, that's always the best time to delete. What the best time is ? To not create in the first place to make that decision. No, I don't need to take this off already or don't need to send this email or whatever in the process. But if you have created something I talked to a professional photographer once and he said after every shoot, he always allocates about 30 minutes to review the shots he has taken cause he can immediately delete, delete, delete, delete, knows immediately cause you're fresh at just after that creation process. Then if you wait until the next day or you wait until the next week, it all often becomes too burdensome and then it becomes part of the 25,000 photos that you have and you're never going to go back to it.So the moment after creation is a great time for actual review and deletion.Gael: I have to take his advice into consideration and make it a reality. I'm terrible at that. And once you were saying it and I was like, "oh my God, actually I never do that," and then I've got like 1000 pictures on my smartphone and I wait for the digital cleanup day to clean them all. But that's a very valuable piece of insight, I feel super guilty now.Gerry: Well, these are things I've been discovering in a habit developed in Zuni in the last couple of years is that every time I look for something in a folder, I now look for something to delete. I nearly always find something to delete. So rather than making it this overwhelming activity, which most of us give up on," oh, I've got too much stuff, I'll never be able to do it". Do a little on a day-to-day basis when you're looking for something, look for something to delete in the process.So there's lots of good individual habits at an organizational level, I think we need to seriously look at getting in control of our websites, our intranets and other data lakes and, and data environments. And actually bringing in proper data management. Most internal environments, they don't even have professional search people.They don't even have people responsible for search design and search maintenance and search evolution. And then they wonder why we have terrible data environments internally. You got to invest in people. Professional people are more important than the latest technology. It's the combination of skilled people and good technology that gives us great results, the best technology in the world without proper skills.So invest in people who used to call editors 20 or 30 years ago, you know, we still need them. We need them more than ever. Invest in people who have information architecture skills. There was more focus in information architecture in 2000 than there is in this year. You know, that's extraordinary.I mean, I find in organizations they cared more about structure and metadata back in 2000 and they care cause they've essentially given up. They've said, "oh, there's too much stuff, we couldn't even begin to organize it well, you gotta get control of your data". And if you have to store stuff for long term reasons, really consider the type of storage that you're going to use.Tape storage is about 3000 times more energy efficient and less polluting than hard drive or cloud-based storage because tape is obviously much more energy efficient. It's not constantly calling energy, but also tape will last about 30 years or longer. Whereas hard drives you even, you're going to be changing them every five or seven years, and even at the time of hard drive, sSD drives are twice as polluting as HTD drives. Look at the type of systems and devices that you're using to store your data because you can make decisions that will have a hugely positive impact on data. Everybody talks every day about how critical data is and data is managed worse than rubbish is managed in a dump in 99 out of a hundred organizations.Finally the government, I think unfortunately I'm going to go for legislation. I think we will have to have a data tax. I think we will have to tax data because unless you put some constraints and some punishments for the creation of waste we will constantly create more and more waste and create stress.I think governments need to create data taxes and connect them with what Katie said. I think we have to legislate for a longer life. We have to legislate for modular designs. We have to make it illegal for Apple to sell AirPods that cannot be repaired or recycled and thousands of other companies.So we have to make legislation that deals with waste because waste is the biggest problem and threat to life on this planet, whether it's waste data or whether it's toxic waste in the pros. So we need a data tax. We need to mandate that smartphones last a minimum of 10 years and that laptops last a minimum of 20 years.I think without that sort of legislation the tech companies are not going to change because they're making too much money out of selling new devices every two or three years.Gael: Okay. Katie, you mentioned that we need a new way of thinking and I like to close the podcast with this question: are you optimistic about the trend that you see today? So, do you believe that people, more and more people are embracing this new way of thinking, welcoming bold ideas like data attacks or huge warranty period, or more serious fire hazard regulation or not? What is your opinion on it? What is the trend that you've noticed?Katie: In the last week, I've learned about two things. One from you, you told me about the ADEME law in France where if a corporation wants to call their product carbon neutral, they must prove it. That is a fantastic law and I hope that it gets a lot of attention so that more countries can adopt laws like that so that we don't just believe the marketing and we really look from cradle to grave at the impacts of every product.I also have learned about a young US American woman who started the log off movement, she was totally addicted to social media for three years, and her self-image went really badly. She got an eating disorder, all of this stuff because she couldn't get off of her social media. And now she and other teenagers are saying, we don't want this.We want a healthy relationship with technology. So I think many people are coming to a place of realizing they don't want this totally consuming relationship with technology. So as more people have problems with their relationship with their computer, I think people will begin to create healthy relationships I don't know how that will translate at the government level, at the organizational level, but as individuals say, "okay, this is too much, this is more than I can handle", then perhaps we'll get to a place where it does translate more for governments and businesses.Gael: What about you, Gerry? Are you optimistic?Gerry: In some ways, I find it hard to be optimistic, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop and not make an effort here. What I would say is that if anyone is listening to this and agrees with these sorts of things. I'd just say it's not enough.You need to become an evangelist. It's still a tiny movement. It is way far from being anything close to a minority, let alone a minor majority of the population. I think we're still in fractional parts, of percentages of the overall population. So I think we need to become evangelists.We need to talk to our brothers and our sisters, our mothers and our fathers, our friends and our neighbors, our work colleagues. We need to join a movement or start a movement. This is a crisis. You know, I didn't think it was four or five years ago.I was quite smug about it. But the more I've researched, the more I've talked to this, this is a crisis. There is a real chance that we could lose this beautiful environment. This unique little bubble that humans and animals and plants can live within. There's a real risk that it won't be there for our children or certainly our grandchildren.So, you know, even if that's a small risk, we'd want to protect against it, wouldn't we? And it's not enough just for us individually to agree we need to become part of a movement or start a movement. We need to evangelize. So please, please do something about it. If you join a group, join a movement, join a community.Gael: Being mindful of time, I would love to close the podcast. But before I've got one final question for you, which is, and you've already shared a lot of references and materials that we will put in the show notes. But if you had to pick one or two qualitative content that you would love to share with the audience to better understand what is at stake when it comes to data growth or the overall environmental footprint of our digital world, what would it be?What would you like us to share with the people reading the show notes?Gerry: Well, I'd definitely say, you know, if you wanna know the physical impact of digital technology. Look up the work that Gael has done over the years. I mean there's few people who have done better deeper work on that physical impact. There's a very interesting guy, a physicist I've come across called Melvin Vopson, who has done a lot of work on the impact of the growth of information.And he has a theory about that information has a weight, information and data has a weight that is independent of the format that it is stored on. If that is true, the implications of that are absolutely enormous as well. So data focus, understanding Melvin Vopson, is a very interesting person in the information theory space.Katie: Gerry, can you say more? What does that mean? That information has a weight independent of the format. Can you translate that for me?Gerry: He's a physicist. And he has a theory that if you had USB stake and the USB stake held a hundred gigabytes, let's say of data, and that if you weighed that USB stick empty, and then you weighed it when you had placed the hundred gigabytes of data on it, that it would actually be heavier.You would need a quantum machine to actually weigh it. But that literally, a hundred gigabytes has an independent weight. And he said that at the moment, all the data in the world that we're storing, which I think is probably, between 10 and 20 zetabytes that were actually storing at the moment would be the weight of bacteria.It's a fractional bacteria as a fractional weight. But he said that with the way we are creating data and the quantity and the speed that we are creating data. Within 250 to 500 years, data, if his theories are right, would go from the weight of an ameba to the weight of half of the mass of the earth, whether data has a weight or not, it gives you a sense of the extraordinarily pace that growth data is growing at, and that it is already out of control.Gael: What about you, Katie? Would you have some resources you want to share with the listeners?Katie: Sure. I'll just share my website, our Web dot tech, and then go to the reports. I've got almost 50 reports about everything from solar photovoltaic and industrial wind turbines and electric vehicles about how each of these things have ecological impacts :fire hazards, worker hazards. I can also really recommend asianometry.com and he has a fantastic piece called the Semiconductor Water Problem. That's a short video. Gael: Thanks a lot Katie, that sounds very interesting, especially the water consumption problem, the semiconductor industry. It has been put a bit under the spotlight, the recent years in Taiwan, where they had to basically choose between rice fields and the semiconductor factories. And I use it a lot when I facilitate workshops or in conferences.Katie: And in the United States, we are now building three fabs in Arizona, which is the desert. So the tax incentives will be very good for these corporations, but no one knows where the water will come from, and yet we've built three fabs in this state. It's, as Gerry said, we're doing things without thinking, without evaluation.Gael: So let's try to evaluate a bit more what we do. And for that we need good data. We need data with a good quality, with a manageable size. And I think it could be the closing word of this episode. That was an intense discussion. I must admit that a lot of the concepts or ideas that you brought, I'm half familiar with, so it was very enlightening to see different approaches not just focusing on the energy consumption and let's decarbonize energy and everything will be back to normal because there will be no back to normal if we follow what you've just explained to us today. So thanks a lot, both of you, for all the insights you shared, all the references and the discussion you had between the two of you as well.That's delightful to hear two guests speaking to each other and interacting. So thanks a lot. It was great to have you on the show today.Katie: Well, thank you. I'm still taking in all the things that Gerry said. It's great.Gerry: No, same here. It's been a great conversation and thanks for organizing it Gael and thanks for the Important work you're doing, you're really making a difference.Gael: Hopefully, you know, it has been a year now that I launched the podcast. We've reached 4,500 downloads, which is not that much Gerry I know because you didn't mention your podcast. But I'm a big fan of the World Wide Waste track on "This is HCD" podcast and actually I salute the other Gerry that will be in the show in some months actually in 2023, that's for sure to talk about sustainable design.But yes, I wasn't sure that this kind of media was needed in our community. And so far the feedback has been good. So I hope now that I will be able to use Green IO as a tool to reach people that are less aware, that might be environmentally aware for sure, but not necessarily connected with their daily job.So we'll see. 2023 is a year for you where we'd like to grow, but in a positive way because we want to grow awareness, not data.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

In this episode, we went across the world for Digital Cleanup Day. Our first guest, Ingrid Nielsen is based in Tallinn, Estonia and she has been working with Let's Do It World NGO for the last years in different capacities, as the head of Global marketing and communication, running initiatives regarding digital waste and other projects.  “Let’s do it world” is the mother NGO of both World Cleanup Day - 50 millions participants worldwide and counting- and its digital offspring which is the Digital Cleanup day. Our second guest, Oliver Vergeynst is based in Brussels, Belgium and he is the Director of the Belgian Institute for Sustainable IT since 2020. Together with the French and the Swiss institutes, they spearhead a lot of the research on Digital Sustainability while grouping both academics and professionals. We dive deep into the thought process behind digital cleanup day, how to get buy-in for digital cleanup, how best to do digital cleanup, and who are the targets of this ambitious project. ❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guest and connect: Ingrid’s LinkedInOlivier's LinkedInGaël's website Green I/O website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Ingrid and Olivier’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:Aston university article on data storage crisisThe Digital Collage workshopInstitute for Sustainable IT BelgiumWorld Cleanup DayDigital Cleanup DayADEME’s Guide for Sustainable Communication 🇫🇷 IFOP study Le rapport des Français à la consommation et les conséquences psychologiques 🇫🇷Marie KondoNiklas Sundberg’s Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology LeadersGerry McGovern’s World Wide WasteMike Berners-Lee’s The Carbon Footprint of EverythingOutrage and Optimism PodcastTranscript (AI generated)Gael: Hello everyone. Welcome to Green I/O, the podcast for doers making our digital world greener one bite at a time. I'm your host, Gael Duez, and I invite you to meet a wide range of guests working in the tech industry to help you better understand and make sense of its sustainability issues, and find inspiration to positively impact your digital world.If you like the podcast, please rate it on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite platform to spread the word to more responsible technologists, like you. And now, enjoy the show.Hello everyone for this episode. I have the pleasure to welcome Ingrid Nielsen and VA to talk about the digital cleanup day, which will happen next week, March 18th. Ingrid is based in Tallin, Estonia, and she has been working with Let's do it world, NGO for the last years in different capacities as the head of global marketing and communication running initiatives regarding digital waste and other projects.Let's do it world is the mother NGO of both word cleanup day, 50 millions participants worldwide and counting as well as its digital offspring, which is a digital cleanup day, which we will talk a lot about today. Saying she's an avid learner would be an understatement. Her studies and training covers sociology, English composition, anthropology, and social entrepreneurship just to name a few.Experiences go from journalism to running a pizzeria among other activities in Abu Dhabi. Since January last year, she has become an advocacy expert for Renewable Energy at the Estonian Farm for nature, aligning even further her commitment to a sustainable world with a career.Olivier is based in Brussel Belgium. He is the director of the Belgium Institute for Sustainable IT since 2020, together with the French and Swiss Institutes, the spare had a lot of research on digital sustainability while grouping both academics and professionals. Fun fact, we both have worked in the payment industry for several years.I used to pay fat bills to Ingenico where he was director of Research and Development and this was actually the last position he held before shifting to the sustainability area and funding, doing good consulting and then Green IT Belgium, welcome Ingrid and Olivier. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.Olivier: Good morning.Ingrid: Thank you very much for having us.Gael: It's a pleasure. So I'd like to start with my usual two questions. The first one being, what did I miss in your bio, and the second one being, how did you become interested in the sustainability of our digital sector in the first place?Ingrid: I don't list things in my bio that I actually do, but it's as varied as, as my official bio is. So one of the things that I've gotten into in the last couple of years is beekeeping. Though I live in the city, I am an avid urban beekeeper since 2021. Definitely brought on a little bit by the covid pandemics that we had.And besides rolling for every possible course, every September coming, I also love to dance tango, and I'm an avid hiker as well.Gael: So tango dancer and avid hiker. Well, that's, that's quite a mix. And what did you bring to the sustainability area?Ingrid: Well, I first started looking into sustainability completely from a different angle, or at least that's what I thought. I started working with Let's do it world, already back in 2018 in different volunteering positions initially, and then slowly getting more and more involved and, and, Moving to the world of waste, let's say.And well actually pandemics was, was the turning point for us as well because during those difficult times when everyone was locked up, we couldn't continue our regular activities of organizing world cleanup day. And there was an actual fear that we had that, that maybe this would be such a long term situation that we wouldn't be able to run world cleanup day that year.And then we started looking into different topics that we could metal in, so to say. And one of them was digital waste. It had been brought to our attention already earlier, but we never had had found time to actually work on it. One day in March, we decided it's time to tackle it, and we did a, the very first time that we ran digital cleanup day it was really put together right there on the spot.And, and we didn't have too much time to prepare for it, but we had great people filling us in on, on the basics, on what are the issues with our digital world today and how does it connect to the wider world of waste and then even wider planetary issues that it brings. So I guess that's, it was sort of like brought on by the situation of that time.Gael: And what about you, Olivier?Olivier: So what was not in my bio that there's, there's quite a few experiences, but I would say the most important one is not a professional one. It's the fact that I became a father 17 years ago already. And that's probably what brought me to thinking about sustainability more than anything else.Actually, I was, I've been working in IT forever. My father used to work at IBM, so I've been with a computer under my hands since I was something like five years old. So 50, 45 years ago, I started playing with computers. And for me, there was never a question about footprint or anything like that related to computers, but still through my work I started looking at what can I do on a daily basis?You know, traveling less especially by plane, taking motor train instead of the car, going to shop locally, these kind of things. And then at some stage I started asking myself, what more can I do than just my own footprint? Because I really thought about the world that we're leaving to our children.And so kind of by chance, I found out suddenly that there was a massive footprint in IT I knew about data centers, but that was it. And actually I discovered that it was much, much larger than that. So I decided to let aside my career in very large companies, international companies and got to train myself in green IT first and then more broadly than that, sustainable IT, numérique responsable, as we call it in French, which is like responsible IT if you want.So it's also looking at everything about accessibility, inclusion, all the social aspects, not only the environmental aspects. And yeah, as I said, it was kind of by chance that I discovered all that and that I decided to change completely my course of career. And that's how we launched in Belgium, the first green IT Belgium, and then now the Belgium Institute for Sustainable IT.Gael: You're not the first one I've met in this podcast. Telling this kind of story that you try to be super sustainable at home and being an IT professional, actually this is not something that we've challenged that much, the IT footprint and that suddenly you say, boom, you realize like, boom, oh, but actually that's pretty significant.And what can I do about it? So it's interesting actually, it's very close to my own personal story on this one. Shifting when you realize that it, yeah, it's just too big and we cannot act at work in a very inconsistent way compared to how we want to work in our personal life.Olivier: And actually the thing is that through your job, you have a much bigger lever than what you can do alone. You can really influence a lot of people. You can change companies, you can change organizations. In the organizations, you can help individuals who change. So that's really the difference between kind of being alone trying to reduce your own footprint, which everyone of course can do, and then using your job, which I think everyone can do as well, you can be in marketing and change the way that you are doing marketing. You can be doing communication, human resources, et cetera, in every type of job. Actually, I believe that we have a role to play through our organization to have a bigger impact.Gael: Yeah, absolutely true. For instance, in France, Ademe just recently launched a Guide for Responsible Communication and it really aims to every, I would say, responsible marketers and responsible spin doctors to change the narrative around how we, we run the economies and, and how we market our product, et cetera.So you absolutely right, everyone can and should be involved.Ingrid: You have hit the nail on its head. Actually, this, one of the things that environmental movements know already for pretty much a couple of decades at least, is that this attention to individual footprint is quite insignificant if we want to bring about systemic change. And I think digital cleanup or digital waste issue is something that goes completely unnoticed on the individual level because people hardly ever have the awareness of what does it mean that I have a phone in my hand that is connect ed 24/7 and that is connected even when I'm not connected, when people are sleeping, the phones sort of like continue to live their own lives as well as computers do. So we are in this world where we hardly ever manage to connect this very abstract idea of internet to the real time actions. And that's why it's really difficult to sort of bring about change by asking individuals to change.Rather it's about organizations that you really have the leverage to change the way that you operate and therefore actually change the environment where those individuals also sort of operate and do their everyday things. And by that, you are able to bring about change and significant change.Gael: Don't you believe that some individual changes when they are, when they reach, I would say a certain magnitude. For instance, the way we purchase or equipments, or the way we invest or money will not some, I would say milestones when it comes to going towards a more sustainable word.Ingrid: Social Science has been looking into this for decades, and it does show that it's great to have individuals with certain awareness, but the systemic change rarely ever happens due to cumulative changes in individual actions. What is required, of course, is that awareness, but the actions that follow the framework that surrounds the actions, this is something that an individual action doesn't really change that much.Therefore, there's this strong correlation between actually when we look at people embarking on this Sustainability road, so to say. They start using less single use plastic for instance. Then they maybe switch off all the lights, but very quickly they reach the tipping point where they realize that actually doesn't make any difference in the world.And it's very disempowering feeling when you come to realize that, wow, the fact that I'm changing doesn't really change the world . So when people reach this tipping point they really feel that they only have two options to do. A large part of people say, okay, my individual actions don't really change the world.I'm not seeing any, any of this happening. Maybe I've even gotten into a lot of trouble with my family who doesn't understand me throughout this journey to sustainability. And they just stop doing it and they go back to the way they were before. And then there's that other part of people who say, okay, individual action didn't work.I will continue doing it, but I need to move on to something else, something bigger, a movement some sort of a local group where I can really see change happening when I do those sustainability driven things, and I guess that's one of the things that actually got me into environmental organizations as well.Personally, I felt that no matter how much organic food I consume, how small I try to keep my environmental footprint, it's really not working. But this empowerment feeling is slow to come and unfortunately to many people, it never arrives because it's too difficult to figure out how to change the world.Gael: I was playing a bit the devil advocate here because I strongly believe infrastructure is everything and you're rightfully said. How you raise awareness to reach a critical size of people being ready to support, even if they don't act, but at least support the change in the infrastructure, whether it's more bikes in the city or more vegetarian food in some places, et cetera.I believe it's also critical, but you're absolutely right. At some point, I mean, we, I'm pretty sure that around this stable, all the three of us, we've faced it at some point that you start acting on your own and at some point you want to be part of something bigger to manage, to leverage more.I mean, from obviously your NGO, Ingrid or the Institute for sustainable IT in Belgium, I think we are all, me launching the podcast. I believe it's really the same framework or pattern, I would say that we went through all the three of us. Am I right, Olivia?Olivier: Yeah, for sure. Let's not forget also that sustainability a big chunk of the society at large is, is something of a Most people are, are struggling for just for food, for energy, for heating the house et cetera. And so the question of can we reduce our footprint, Is really put aside for, for many people on the planet.We are, we are quite lucky to be able to try and do something together with our associations or the companies that are working with us, et cetera. I take that as a pleasure, daily pleasure to work in more sustainability. It's not yet sustainability as such, but it's trying to go towards more sustainability.But yeah, it's a long journey because of all the other problems that we face in society and the planet at large.Gael: You're so right. And every week I listen to Outrage Optimism to make sure that Christina Figueres will remind me that, the planet has global North, but also global South. And the way we present the sustainably issues is very different when you still need to feed and to cover basic needs for a large part of your population.And still, you know, when I discuss in France which last time in I checked is still part of Global Norths with activist. I love to share this report about the Web French people consume and it's it has been released, I think one or two years ago by the French Institute for political Studies.And it really highlighted a big fracture within the French society in the way people consume. And that was very enlightening when it comes to secondhand equipment because if you are surrounded by people who are, I would say, environmentally aware, if not like activists, secondhand is seen a blessing is seen as something you should achieve to reduce your, you know, material footprint in the world, et cetera.And we tend to push secondhand, buying secondhand, repairing things as something that people should be very proud of like a positive social marker. And but the truth is like for a lot of the French population, actually secondhand is something that they have to do. They have to shop on Leboncoin for many, many stuff because they cannot afford to buy new stuff.And this is not a positive marker at all. It is actually a stigma. And buying, being able to buy the latest shinier smartphone, et cetera, is a way to prove that they are not people with social disabilities as we say now. So that's very interesting and thanks for reminding it Olivier that it's not black and white in the entire world, and the way we see things and the way we embrace sustainability can differ widely, even among a single country.So thanks a lot for this. Maybe Ingrid, could you, I mean, you already started to explain how the digital cleanup day started and all this genesis, but could you broadly explain what are its goals and how you manage to create a different event? I would say an offspring of the world cleanup day.Ingrid: So, World Cleanup Day actually runs on quite similar pillars as the digital cleanup day does. We found that there's really not much difference in the, and the main goal of this event of both of the events is creating awareness, but not creating this broad awareness, but bringing people to the actions so that they themselves realize, oh, I didn't know about this.Wow, it's such a huge problem, what can I do about it. So that's pretty much the very core of the digital cleanup day. We're not trying to solve the issue of digital waste of this growing footprint of all our internet systems, but we're rather trying to make people realize that there is an issue.One of the very strong aspects of digital cleanup day is it is mainly aimed or not mainly aimed, but it is still in, in a strong focus is on corporations. On larger companies, the ones who actually either own infrastructure, internet infrastructure, or they rented out to store their data or run their operations on.That's the difference between those two cleanup days, so to say. But not to say that one is more important than the other. Absolutely not. What we're trying to also create with Let's do it World is the understanding for all the habitants of this planet is that is that it's a lot of the waste that we have is actually invisible. It's either invisible because it's digital, but also our regular waste is invisible. And we're trying to sort of connect the planet and, and show these movements of our waste around it. Because what we've really realized is that people have this idea that when I throw things away, there's this magical place called away , but it doesn't exist.The same thing happens in our phones. We think that we delete things and they go away, but nothing disappears. So the core issue of all wastes regarding whether it's real or digital is the fact that we created and we are trying to aim with both these initiatives to arrive to that point where people say, we create too many things, we create too much stuff, and we need to stop doing this.It's a very long and largest process, though. World Cleanup Day is now five years old. Digital Cleanup day is three years old, and whereas we see the increasing awareness it's still uphill struggle. But one of the great things about Digital Cleanup day though is, and I, and I think this is something that you mentioned already, is that if something is trendy, it really catches on and it has a huge sort of like push to actually start the change.And even though for majority of our citizens of this planet, this is not an option to think about such things. The trends are really the ones that need to move through our global north and, and change the way that the global North thinks. And that's what we see in our everyday work with country leaders from Africa, from Asia, et cetera, because our network consists of more than 150 countries.And that means that we really have this good, complex picture of how things and problems are perceived all around the world.Gael: And Olivier not embracing the entire planet, but maybe zooming in a little in Belgium. Could you tell us how concretely it works in a country like Belgium?Olivier: Maybe some story about how it started in Belgium for our association. So the French Institute existed already since 2019. They launched in 2020 what was then called in front of the cyber world cleanup day. I think it was not directly related to the world cleanup day at that time.And then it's also in 2020 that we launched the Belgium institute for Sustainable IT. So we started very small. There was already a big ecosystem about green IT, generally speaking in France at the time. But in Belgium it was really kind of siloed type of initiatives. But there was nothing trying to look over all the types of problems and problematics that we can face with with it negative impacts potentially.And so in 2021, we were too young to launch out the first the first cleanup day digital cleanup day in Belgium. Yet there were some companies taking some actions, but through the French one for us at the time. And then in 2022, we started having an action through our association to also push for this digital cleanup day. It was still pretty small. I would say something like 30 plus organizations, fairly big organizations generally speaking taking action. But it's still very small compared to what was done in France and around the world. And then this year it's it's growing further and we took more initiatives through the institute itself because we've got a bit more resources to work on that.And so we can use now the, the digital cleanup day as a better tool for awareness creation in Belgium around different types of organizations. So we are investing more time and effort in the digital cleanup day now in Belgium than before. So it's, it's growing. It's growing slowly but surely.And I'm really happy to see that it's also picking up in the world through the cleanup day organization, I would say.Gael: Which kind of organizations set up cleanups in Belgium, for instance?Olivier: So for what we see in Belgium, the ones that report, because that's also something important to notice. You can do a digital cleanup day without having to report the information about what you've been cleaning. So we don't know in this case. So I think that quite some, quite a few smaller organizations are also implementing a digital cleanup day.But the ones that are reporting on it through the structure that we've put in place are mainly large organizations. Sometimes it can be medium ones but it's all types of organizations. They can be public services or administration. They can be universities. They can be hospitals. We've got farmers, we've got really all types of organizations. But what we see from our perspective is mainly large ones. That's more noticeable. And I think it is linked to the fact that when you have a big organization starting to implement a sustainable IT strategy, they see the digital cleanup day as a good tool actually to communicate with their employees.Also with the, sometimes their external stakeholders can be with their clients, but not so much through the digital cleanup day. So yeah, they've got more resources to communicate around it and therefore also to gather the information back and to report on it. And one of the things that large organizations tend to do sometimes is, for example, to use the digital cleanup day as kind of a team building or team challenge or something like that.They challenge each other. So each team will try to do it, the best cleaning they can, and they can then kind of order themselves among the other teams in the company. And that seems to create a very positive awareness and movement. But again, it's much easier to do in a in a larger organization to create that kind of gamification than in a smaller one.Gael: So mostly large organizations, but with a wider variety of sectors. Being used used as a competition team building tool. That's a funny one. And actually, what kind of actions they can take, I believe there are three types of actions that you can do when you do a digital cleanup events?Ingrid: So one of the things that immediately companies tackle is the way that they operate on emails. It's one of the things that everyone notices. It's the closest to your, it's, it's like a wallet. It sits right there. As soon as you open your computer, you always go and check in your emails. And I'm pretty sure everyone of us has side at the site that we have more than 7,000 emails in our inbox sitting there.Not many of us are very savvy in organizing our life in a way that that our inboxes are empty. So I think that's the first And that's what experience shows. It's the first thing that companies tackle. And very often what we've seen is that they not just clean up their inboxes, but they set in policies actually that you gotta clean it up.They set up time that, you know, every Friday what we do is we clean our inboxes. We don't just keep stuff sitting there. And they really try and maybe find alternatives also to internal communications. Not using emails as much, but rather moving to a channel that is more live and creating teams there, which is a positive thing.But I'd like to hear from Olivier, what's your experience in that?Olivier: So, yeah, the originally started only about cleaning data. The first cyber world cleanup day in France at least, which I took part was related only to data. And one of the things that was very quickly highlighted even during the cleanup day was the fact that actually the biggest problem is not so much about data first, but it's about equipment.That's, I think, why it's evolved towards what it is now, which is about three things. We've got the cleaning up of data itself. And then there's two things related to equipment. The one is about giving a second life to digital equipment, and the second one is about recycling unused equipment when it's not possible to reuse it at all.I think that's one of the key elements to mention the digital cleanup. There is a tool as mentioned already to raise awareness about the problem, but the biggest problem that we have is about the manufacturing of end user equipment that has the largest footprint of everything. Once you know that you start by, of course trying to buy less, and then if you need to buy something, you will try to buy reconditioned equipment or you will try to give a second life to your, or third life even to your own equipment.And then only at the latest the last resort try to get them recycled properly and responsibly. These are the three pillars that we have this year in the digital cleanup day. It's about cleaning data, offering a second life to digital equipment and recycling what is not possible to repair anymore.Gael: Big kudo to the digital cleanup day, the NGO, et cetera. Because if you look at digital sustainability compared to other sustainability areas like, I don't know, waste management, regenerative agriculture, for instance, it's still in its infancy phase. We don't have that many studies. We don't have that much news coverage as Ingrid said at the beginning.And it is true that sometimes we lack data. And it is also true that a few years ago the focus was a lot on data and a lot on email. And that now the shifted as the focus story has shifted a bit towards equipments because the more we study the overall environmental footprint of our digital world, the more we realize that equipments and especially end user equipments are the biggest part of the problem.Which is not saying that data growth is something sustainable on its own end, but we might come back to this point later. My question to both of you will be how did you manage to adjust? I think it's very agile the way you manage to say, okay, one year we're gonna focus on this, and then oh, oops, we realize that actually there are other area of focus.How did you manage here to make in three years time, the digital cleanup deck covering a more consistent and wider scope of the environmental footprint of our digital word.Olivier: I think we've got to adapt very quickly to any kind of change. Now it's a changing world. But this one was very easy, at least for us, because we knew from the start when we started with the first digital cleanup day, which was only on data, as I said. We knew from the start that it was not the biggest item I would say to manage.But we thought it was a nice way to start something which was easy to communicate, that did not a lot of organization because you only gather some data about what has been cleaned up, but you don't need to organize something about gathering equipment which is a logistic nightmare of course. So, that was easy to launch, and at the same time we knew that we would have a pushback from the ecosystem already saying that we would not be focusing on the right things.So it was really easy to adapt from there. The biggest challenge was how to do it from a logistics point of view, I would say. Otherwise we would've started probably by equipment.Ingrid: Yes. I agree. I mean when we look at any kind of human systems, let's just say, where production and consumption is involved, we always run into this issue that it's complex, it's difficult to solve, and therefore you can't just sit back. And wait for it to solve itself, to find its natural course.And of course with more knowledge, we become more aware. So we do encourage people to look into different aspects, the physical side of it, the virtual side of it. But one of the things that we still haven't reached, this is actually what you already sort of briefly mentioned, is the fact that our data also grows exponentially each year.Each day actually. So, so that's one of those core issues that we are still working on, on how to bring this awareness out there because when we see this technological push to move over, to change our vapor based economies into virtual economies or this kind of like technology digitalization.Then we also see the exponential growth of data, it's a slowly creeping up on us. People are starting to become aware of this and I guess next year we will be talking about a different aspect of the digital waste or our digital world again, because there's a big variety of different topics that are very strongly connected.Gael: On the data side Ingrid, you might be actually super right, but I had this very interesting discussion with Florence cause she's really focused on data and I came more from the hardware part of, okay, data is important, but really, you know, mining, et cetera, et cetera, the manufacturing, it creates a lot of environmental impacts, et cetera.And she told me that some studies now are raising the alarm that we might face in 2025, which is tomorrow, a potential cloud saturation, the so-called data storage crunch. And regarding this risk, you've got two kind of answers. So an unsustainable data growth grows because of more video, more photo.That's not really email here, but quite a lot of IoT logs as well. Creating too much tension on our capacity to store data. And you've got kind of two answers. You've got people believing in working very hard on new solutions, like a storage solution based on DNA or advanced polymer chemistry and helping that it'll solve the problem.And you've got a second approach, which is maybe we should challenge our relationship to data and embrace a bit more sobriety or even just maybe rationality. Ingrid, how do you believe the digital cleanup day next year and in 2025 will position itself regarding this topic of data growth. That I know is very keen to your heart. Ingrid: Yeah. We are moving towards getting into the core issue. The fact that we produce a lot of single use data. We actually produce a lot of zero use data. We just collect data without any scrutiny to its content. We never use it again. It's all done in good faith, but it's all done also by delaying the real decisions of how do we actually consume, we're a planet of consumers.This, this is what shows from, from everywhere. And I think this is one of the major issues to tackle is how do we actually, as a movement. As someone who has the knowledge, as someone who studies it, how do we actually push towards people to sit down and say"Hmm, we've screwed it up". We need actual solutions.We need to change it and sobriety's not a concept that people come easily into. They don't like it. They feel like it's something that is taken away from them. So it's a tricky topic to introduce and to continue rolling with it. And that's why maybe what these kinds of large movements, environmental movements often cannot afford is to create this sense that it's a radical thing to do.It's a wise thing to do, but at the same time, it can feel like, oh my God, but this would mean a total collapse of our economy. As a social scientist background, I say that, well, that's not gonna happen. Rather, it's more likely that if we continue delaying these deep value-based decisions, that's when we'll actually arrive to the collapse because it's a finite planet, it's a closed system, and we just cannot expect any infinite.Solutions to be out there. So when you are mentioning this DNA based or polymer based recording, it's a technological solution. But if it's not applied correctly, if it's not applied with the scrutiny to why we need it and do we actually need it, then it just becomes another tool that sort of like puts on more fire to the burning planet.I really hate to use these kinds of terms because then people think, ah, another loony bin from an environmental organization. But that's when we look at the history of technology and how people have used it and how it's created itself with every technological advancement, a myriad of new problems is created that for some weird reason, humans do not want to talk about.They just wanna put another technology on top of it and, and hope it solves the issue. So, I guess this is the core challenge of these digital cleanup days, or these awareness programs or even media attention that we need to arrive to this point and, and start asking the real question.Gael: That's a very interesting point because from the very beginning of the interview, you really, both of you, you really made it super clear that the digital cleanup day is about awareness and Ingrid, you just mentioned awareness to even the broader issue of the limits that our closed system called the planet Earth is facing, I mean, that we actually, we are facing within the system.And I'd like to zoom in a little on this awareness topic with a first question to both of you. If I want to leverage the tools provided by the digital cleanup day, and you know, I'm a worker, I'm an employee in whatever kind of company, maybe a tech company. Most of my audience are tech workers, but that could be any kind of company.What are the pushback that I could face from my colleagues or from my management, and how should I deal with it? Because it's all about raising awareness. So how do you equip people wanting to raise awareness in regards of these pushbacks?Olivier: So what we do, we provide quite a few guides communication sets, et cetera, that people can use for organizing digital cleanup day so that they are already equipped with the basic information. Also, we try to explain how it works and what is important in doing data cleanup so that it does not become something negative if you start asking people to spend hours opening and closing each email to see if they can delete them or not, et cetera.First of all, it's really boring and it's annoying everyone, so people are pushing back. Secondly, you are having a larger impact, environmental impact by doing it that way than if you were not cleaning the data. So it's about explaining that if you want to clean up data, the best way is to do it in bulk.For example, erase all your emails that are older than since 2021 or 2020 or something like that. If you do it in bulk, that's much better if you delete large applications in bulk. The key elements on which we are communicating is why and how to organize your cleanup and also to make it, as I was explaining first a few minutes ago about gamification, that it becomes something fun because otherwise you are just punishing people into having to clean things because they've not been good during the year or something like that.Organizations are using that fairly adequately. I think that they realize that sustainability must become something positive in the way that we are organizing it, in the way that we are communicating around it. It used to be very much kind of a punishment or negative message. And they are now more and more trying to turn that into something positive in which people want to take part almost by reflex because they say, yeah, it's good common sense, so we should do it.Of course,Gael: And Ingrid, is gamification and making more appealing, something more positive an angle of attack that you've got as well?Ingrid: Gamification, yes, is the first step. It's not a necessity. A lot of the times it's enough just to encourage people that really, honestly, if you haven't accessed your email from three years ago and you haven't once looked at it, you haven't felt the need to do it, then you really don't need it. You can safely delete it.People are slightly hesitant for a second, like, oh, maybe there's an important email there that I will need later on. But generally, even in organizations, this, move of delete it in bulk, is empowering. So that's also part of this gamification. You give people permission to get rid of their junk.Personally, I really love this movement of Marie Kondo that if you don't love it, if a thing doesn't bring you joy, then you don't need it. You either pass it on to someone else or you, you simply just delete it. And I think this is a good approach to have also when we work on our machines or on our devices as well.And one of the things that you did mention earlier is a huge part of our data is just recreational data, like videos and photographs, and all of us are guilty of snapping too many photos of the same event or of the same situation. And that's actually a quick thing to do. And when people realize that they're running out of data on smartphones or companies realize that we are putting way too much money into paying to store this data that people have created, that they keep around just in case, then maybe it is much better if we do this awareness thing. And then we have either a person or a couple of people trying to look at the how process is run in our company in order to avoid coming back to the same situation the year after by changing the way that they communicate, for instance, or also by looking at, okay, what is the actual crucial data that we need to collect and store?Maybe, you know, legal purposes require certain things to be stored and what are the things that we can give up on that we don't need to do this in bulk? That shows that the company or the organization is doing progress in it. And that means that people don't feel that it's only up to me to make sure that my company is, you know, digitally sustainable.And I think this is the driving force behind actually getting digital cleanup day to start an internal change. And I think this is, and I believe Oliver, you agree from your long experience that that's the way that people stay committed to it as well.Olivier: Yeah, sure. If you look at a few years ago, not so long ago, actually, there were limits to the size of mailboxes in companies. Simply because the cost of storage was so high, but it was seen as kind of punitive. You, if you were higher up in the organization, you had a the right to have a larger mailbox, and if you were at the bottom, you had to clean very regularly.So it was really kind of negative approach, I would say. And then it became so cheap to store more data that everyone got huge Gmail box suddenly. So now it has become kind of the norm to have something where everyone can store as much as you want. Of course much better if people are encouraged to reduce the size of their mailbox.And if there are incentives to do so. Now what we don't, what we cannot forget is the size of videos much more than mailboxes. You mentioned it in the introduction. The biggest impact in terms of data comes from video and then pictures, and then only stuff like emails, et cetera.And we see already that videos are already, today 80% of the internet bandwidth is taken by different types of videos. There's like 60%, which are video on demand of all sorts, or Netflix, pornography, et cetera. There's 20% which are like zoom calls, security cameras, television streaming, not the the video on demand, but streaming.So that's 20%. And then only the rest is about the other types of data. But the video is increasing much faster than all the rest. And one positive thing, for example, is that if you look at, very large size of the world, if you look at something much larger than just US, Europe as I've read that recently, I need to see the legal paper, but apparently Europe will not authorize 8K videos, 8K televisions to be sold in Europe. So that will make a difference because then there's no reason to download an 8K video. And an 8K video takes much, much more data than a 4k, which takes much more data than a hd.And most of the time we don't even need hd. If you're looking at the video on the, I don't know, on the smartphone, tablet, or even a laptop, the fact that you're taking a 4K does not make sense. The eye does not see it. So the question is how can we reduce these very large amounts of data? And that comes back to corporations.But once you have large organizations with many employees that are aware of the impact of data, there can be a pushback on the providers. And then it's only when there's a pushback from the clients that the providers will start reducing their own impact, and that we may have a positive positive aspect in terms of positive impact on all the providers.Wether, video on demand all the types of games, et cetera, that are taking a lot of bandwidth and creating, you know, full lot of data, that's for sure an important step. Sending data. So the transmission itself consumes roughly the equivalent of one to two years of storage. So the first thing that you need to do is not so much to clean up the data, it's to avoid creating data and avoid sending that data to the cloud, for example.If you can avoid creating the data in the first place, that's much better than creating, transmitting it and then deleting it later. So, it starts by creating less data and then of course, if you already created it, it's much better to reduce and delete what you can, but in bulk has already mentioned.Gael: I was laughing because the 80% bandwidth of the internet being taken by video is kind of one of the top cards in the digital collage workshop. You know, when I facilitate this workshop, it's the moment where people got this haha moment, the same with the law recycling rate, et cetera, et cetera.But it's like, what? 80% just video. And because video is mostly associated with leisure activities it's even more powerful. But that's absolutely true. That video is a big issue. And that creating them in the first place is a massive issue.Ingrid: Yeah, but try to say that to a teenager ,now.Gael: Well, actually a teenager who would have done the digital collage workshop or any kind of similar workshops raising awareness. I believe will have already noticed a very different approach to his or her use of his digital devices than before.I mean, it's just the information is simply not there. And the importance of raising awareness and what the two of you are doing with the digital cleanup day, obviously, because honestly, once a teenager understand the massive impact of the use phase and the manufacturing phase and the e-waste phase of our digital equipments that most often there are quite a lot of things who change. But yes, that's still an uphill battle, but it's doable.Ingrid: No, no, no. What what meant is that teenagers, yeah, they, in my experience as well, they are usually the most receptive. They're the quickest to say:"this is wrong, and they should change". But a lot of the times also their life is dictated by it. Their social relationships are online, majority of them.So again, we can't just leave it to teenagers saying, change yourself and the world will change. We need to help them in this by creating a safer and more just internet space for them to operate in. Yeah.Gael: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. You know, absolutely. I agree with you that we cannot rely only on them to change, and we need a change in the infrastructure as well. I wasn't aware Olivier, about this potential ban of 8K, which seems perfectly consistent because that doesn't make any difference between 4K and 8K for any human eye.Except when you've got like super large squeeze that will not fit in anyone's room except like in big commercial center or that kind of stuff. But yeah, if you can share with us the paper that will be awesome.Olivier: Yeah, I would love to find the original law or project or something. I just read in the newspaper a couple of days ago that it was being projected to be avoided or, but anyway. Yeah, we'll see what comes out of it. That there's always so much of pushback from the providers.All the lobbying that can be made around the manufacturing is amazing. So we'll see if it goes through or not.Gael: Yeah, well, having meant, you know, that, and I know that because we've both worked in the payment service industry and you know, that the payment service industry when it comes to equipment is all based about renting and not selling anything. And I can tell that it has been a very, and it is still a very profitable industry.So it's really a question of being aware that you can change your business model and offering something different than just selling. And then I don't care. And I hope that the machine will broke as soon as possible so that I can sell. Another one is just one way, one business model that is obviously thriving around the world at the moment, but, I think, work for banks, like very big banks, non-profit at all.Yeah, other business models are very profitable as well, and much more aligned with the planet. But anyway I'm rambling again. Being mindful of time, if you don't mind, I have a question for you, maybe more for Olivier, because you told me that the Institute for Sustainable, it works primarily with large companies rather than, you know, startup, they can definitely benefit from all the open source materials you provide.I have kind of a challenging question on greenwashing, because I've been noticing with many other people involved in the digital sustainability field, inconsistency from, and you mentioned several times providers, big providers. So let's for instance, take some telco companies for instance.Very recently I've noticed a network operator that I will not name here, which on one hand will advise their clients on using wifi instead of 4g. And that's a very interesting communication because that's not something that was said just two years before and the very same week, the very same network operator will send a promotional email to replace its client's smartphones with the latest shiny one.So do you believe it is intentional or not and how you deal with this in the institute? Between, you know, people truly willing to green the internet and the digital sector, but also still pushing very unsustainable commercial practices.Olivier: It's a very good question. It's much broader than just telcos. I'll come back to telcos in a second, but it's a general question. How do you try to avoid as much possible as much greenwashing as possible? We are very lucky in one sense is that most of our members are users of IT to deliver their eco business.They are not IT providers as such I mentioned hospitals, administrations banks, et cetera. They are, they are big users of it. But, so it's not their core focus and therefore they don't communicate so much around what they are doing to reduce their footprint. So that's one good way that we have already to avoid too much greenwashing.It's not something which is key in their communication when they're doing sustainable it. Now, if we move to providers and especially to telco of course there, it can be a struggle for them internally as well in how they do it. I think that it's a bit the same as in every organization. And even at society at large.There's challenges when you are, when you're trying to reduce the footprint, your own footprint, or the one of your clients, et cetera, it's not yet structured. So some departments, some people are really convinced and they will start using the communication to encourage some reduction of the footprint, but then some part of the business is still running on, I would say, on all the type of business model.As you, as you just mentioned, it is about selling more equipment. It is about selling top potentially more data, et cetera. So as long as the business model of the company has not changed, there will still be communication that goes just against what has been said just before. And that's fairly logical, but I think it's an evolution.The fact that if you look at equipment, for example, again, for telcos, there's more and more communication about buy a refurbished phone or bring back your phone and you will get a reduction on the next one, et cetera. Of course, bringing back does not solve all the issue. You're not sure that it'll be refurbished and reused, but the fact that it has become mainstream now to talk about secondhand or thirdhand smartphones, and that you can get a warranty on that for one year or two years, makes a hell of a difference.More and more people are, are considering buying refurbished equipment, which was completely no go a few years ago. You only did it because you could not afford a new one. Now even companies are buying refurbished equipment because there's an offering which starts to exist where you can buy very large amounts, like 100 or 200 laptops that are refurbished because companies need to have that large numbers of exactly the same equipment.Otherwise it's not manageable. So there's a shift which is taking place. And I think that part of it will bring companies like the telcos to, in a fairly short period of time, I believe that they will go away from that idea of take a new data package, and you can buy a smartphone for one euro or something like that.And I would say there's something else next to the goodwill and the evolution of the business. I think there's also regulations, and I would not be surprised if in a couple of years from now, it'll be banned to sell for one Euro or for nine Euro, whatever, a smartphone with your data. How do you call that?Gael: Bundle subscription. Olivier: Yeah. I think that will disappear at some stage because you're pushing for over-consuming equipment, which goes completely against all the objectives of sustainability, at least in it.Gael: Yeah. I will not be surprised at all if in less than two or three years time, obviously, honestly I think it is less than two years time, the European communion will impose way higher warranty period. Something like five years for a smartphone or something like that. But anyway, the regulation is key, as you say.And Ingrid, is the shift, that Olivier described, something you've noticed also, is it something more European based or something that you've noticed worldwide?Ingrid: Well, we can never just expand our European experience to the other world. We're still talking about, if we look at how, how do people on the African continent consume internet and digital services and also the devices. It's completely different from how we do it. We definitely live here in some sort of magical land of abundance where nothing really matters and a lot of these costs we just transfer them to the global south.And this is something that the awareness has been rising and, and this is definitely on the institutional level, and therefore you see these bans and measures put in place in the European Union that would limit our limitless consumption. But it is, it is very difficult.But in terms of greenwashing, the fact that it's been brought out that companies, people, entities are being called out upon it is, I think the major driving force in actually changing it. That you don't just do cosmetic changes. You don't just participate in the digital cleanup day, but then you actually need to look at your business model, how you operate.And as an entrepreneur, I understand the difficulty but I would like to encourage our enterprises to, and by reminding them that businesses forever changing. And it is difficult to change your business model, especially when it's well established, but it is beneficial to you personally and as an organization as well.And what I've seen throughout my studies in social entrepreneurship is that this kind of awareness is on the rise from the organization side ,that some of them are actually committing to change. We need to change the way that we operate. Yeah, we are going against the market, but that's the only way to survive.And I think this is a good beginning of the movement and I do hope that it picks up quicker that companies are not afraid to change themselves. Maybe completely change because I think the worst is to just say, no, I want to continue as always, because this is, this is the way that I know business.Then it's pretty sure that you're not a sustainable entity.Gael: Absolutely. We've already noticed it with the Covid 19 crisis where suddenly, you know, you are a startup, you are a scale up. You want to buy 100 computers for your employees, and they're not there. That's it, period. Or you want to rent some kind of taxi business, taxi related business and you cannot have a car for four or six months.So I truly agree with you. The sustainable business of the future will be business, truly embracing sustainability, environmental and social sustainable approaches. Okay. Thanks a lot, both of you. I've got one final question, which is a standard one in this podcast, and that will be what are your recommendations to learn more about these topics?What are the books, the podcasts, the conferences, the articles, the thought leaders that you'd like to mention to help people raising awareness around them or deep diving into these topics?Olivier: What I would say is if you're based in Belgium or in France or in Switzerland, of course feel free to contact the Institute for Sustainable It and to get in the community and get information from there. Otherwise if you want to have a good book in English about how to manage differently, your IT in a company, there's a book by Niklas Sundberg: Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders.And that's kind of a bible that I can recommend to anyone managing an IT organisation.Ingrid: And from my side, maybe from a general perspective of how large is the problem, maybe I could suggest Gerry McGovern's Worldwide Waste, which is quite known already among people who are interested in it. But it's a good read for even people who don't really understand what internet is and how does it work and what's data and everything.And then of course, if you really wanna suggest it to your family and friends, then The Carbon footprint of everything by Mike Burners Lee is a great place to get started on understanding what are the implications of everything that we have come used to. So I guess these would be the two first things that pop into my mind to suggest.Gael: Thanks a lot, both of you. I think Gary McGovern has the clear lead, when it comes to a book being mentioned in the show, but I really thank you for mentioning Mike Burners Lee books as well because I think it has not been that often mentioned. And that's a great book, as you say, to start having a full understanding a bird eye view on carbon footprint.So thanks a lot. And I think we had a very good, and once again, pretty long episode, but that was great to have both of you in the show. So thanks a lot for joining. I wish that this digital cleanup day, next week will be highly successful for the planet and also for thanking you for all the efforts you put in organizing it. Whether it's in Belgium or in the entire world. So, thanks a lot to both of you for joining the show.Ingrid: Thank you very much for having us.Olivier: Thank you.Gael: And one final word about Green IO: Happy Birthday ! Last year on March's third, the very first episode of Green IO was released with Fershad Irani talking on the website sustainability. One year later, here we are with this fourteenth episode. Almost 5,000 downloads in total with listeners across more than 30 countries and 19 guests who made us the honor to join the Green IO podcast with gender parity have been been reached.A big thanks to all of you listening and supporting the show. 2023 will be a super exciting year with great episodes to come with a wide range of topics being covered, like carbon accounting for IT departments, E-waste, sustainable digital marketing, and also our usual focus on sustainable design, cloud sustainability, and green software.A third episode per month, this one with a new format will be announced soon. So stay tuned. Hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform and please follow the Green IO LinkedIn page, which is the only social network we are truly active on. And one last thing, this podcast has been built for you responsible technologists, and we would love to hear what you wish to listen to in 2023.So please fill our Green IO listeners questionnaire. You will find the link in this episode description or on our LinkedIn page. So thanks a lot to all of our listeners all over the world and talk to you in two weeks.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

In this episode, Gaël Duez stayed home in France to discuss gender equity in IT and building sustainability teams in large companies. His guests Lucille Vannier is one of the strongest voices in the French IT sector for gender equality. She is also the Strategy Deputy Director of the Sustainable IT Institute, which is the academic body spearheading most of the research in France on Digital Sustainability. She provides serious advice for anybody who wants to follow her lead in advocating for a sustainable and equitable future in the IT space, with lots of resources to check out too! 🤓❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guest and connect: Lucile's LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green I/O website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Lucile’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:Mentioned in the EpisodeDesigning for Sustainability by Tim FrickSonarqubeAFNORCIGREF (the network of big French business and public administrations wishing to progress in digital technology)ADN Ouest CSR Groupe BPCEThe Digital CollageMooc InriaThe Social Dilemma The Institute for Sustainable IT | Institut du Numérique Responsable (🇫🇷)PodcastsIn English  “Green Momentum” by Natixis, BPCE GroupI recommend “Time for frugality in a digital era” with my colleagues Philippe Derouette and Marie Joron and published in November 2021Time for frugality in a digital era - Asset & Wealth - Management and Corporate & Investment Banking (groupebpce.com) (14 min) In French “Techologie” by  Richard Hanna(in French)Trying to link technology and ecology when everything opposes themhttps://techologie.net “L'Octet Vert” by Tristan Nitot (in French)Talk about Climate, digital and invigorate !https://www.standblog.org “Déclics ou des claques ?” by Groupe ISIASustainable digital Idea box.https://podcast.ausha.co/declic-ou-des-claques/ To learn the fundamentals:In EnglishThe Digital Collage / The Digital Fresco (la Fresque du numérique)Sustainable IT MOOC by INR - Institut du Numérique Responsable (Institute of Sustainable IT - https://www.isit-academy.org)› Awareness MOOC (30min)› The whole MOOC NR (4:30) In FrenchSerious Escape Game about Sustainable IT by The Wokies (1 hour)INRIA’s MOOC (4 or 5h) ToolsINR’s tools in english (https://isit-europe.org):Myimpact: A calculator that allows us to simply calculate our professional digital impact, to shed light on the impacts linked to our overconsumption of digital technology.Sustainable IT Services Design Handbook: More than 500 recommendations divided into 8 families of a digital service design project to acquire methods to develop digital services in a responsible way, by responding to the People, Planet, Prosperity challenges.Directory of sustainable IT experts to facilitate the search for qualified profiles able to support the structuring and development of the sustainable IT approach of organisations ReplayIn English:“The social dilemma”, Jeff Orlowski, September 2020: a documentary investigation about favorite social media and search platforms. It shows how social media is designed, regulated and used, and the individual and collective consequences of our growing dependence on social media.In FrenchConference “Transition environnementale dans le numérique : Pourquoi ? Comment ?” with Jean-Marc Jancovivi during CFE-CGC Orange Seminar in Octobre 2022Conference “Le numérique : menace ou espoir pour l’environnement ?” with Françoise Berthoud - EcoInfo CNRS in November 2018 StudiesIn EnglishSummary of impact of ICT studies by Lancaster University: “The real climate and transformative impact of ICT: A critique of estimates, trends, and regulations”, 2021Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, CNES, UPS : “Estimate of the carbon footprint of astronomical research infrastructures”, March 2022Academic report: “On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030”, April 2015Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report, IPCC, 2021-2022In FrenchThe Shift Project "Pour une sobriété numérique", October 2018The Shift Project “Impact environnemntal du numérique : tendances à 5 ans et gouvernance de la 5G”, March 2021Collectif Green IT "Empreinte environnementale du numérique mondial", September 2019France Stratégie “La consommation de métaux du numérique”, June 2020Sénat report about control and influence: Prendre en main notre destin numérique : l'urgence de la formation (senat.fr), June 2018 BooksIn English“1984” - Georges Orwell, 1949“The Limits to Growth” - Fonella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Joregen Randers, William W. Behrens, 1972“The political economy of degrowth" - Timothée Parrique, 2019In French“Les besoins artificiels. Comment sortir du consumérisme”- Razmig Keucheyan, Ed. La Découverte, 2019"La société de déconsommation, la révolution du vivre mieux en consommant moins" - Cécile Désaunay, Ed. Gallimard, 2021“Vers un numérique responsable. Repensons notre dépendance aux technologies digitales”- Vincent Courboulay, Ed. Domaine du possible, 2021“L’enfer numérique. Voyage au bout d’un Like”- Guillaume Pitron, Ed. Les liens qui libèrent, 2021“La fabrique du crétin digital”- Michel Desmurget, Ed. Seuil, 2019“Impacts écologiques des technologies de l’Information et de la Communication” - Groupe ÉcoInfo, Ed. edp sciences, coll. QuinteSciences, 2012“Peut-on croire aux TIC vertes ? ” - Fabrice Flipo, François Deltour, Michelle Dobré et Marion Michot, Ed. Presses des Mines, Coll. Développement durable, 2012Transcript : Gael: Hello everyone, in this episode. We go to not, or parrot. Well, I don't know, actually, with remote work, it's sometimes hard to know where people are based. So let's say we go to France for the sake of simplicity. Actually, it's still a quite exotic destination for a lot of our listeners. And today I have the pleasure to speak to Lucile Vannier.Where to start, with someone as active as Lucile? She's one of the strongest voices in the French IT sector for gender equality. She's also the strategy deputy director of the Institute for Sustainable IT, which is the academic body spearheading most of the research in France on digital sustainability, and she's also neck deep into green IT, being the voice for digital sustainability inside the BPC bank, the seventh's largest European bank. And before that she had an impeccable track, we called managing projects in big financial institutions. And actually, this is one of the reasons I wanted to have her on the show. We tend to mix a lot. Tech and tech.We focus a lot on the digital tech sector, which shiny pure players companies where the product is a digital product, where the CIO is often a CTO. But the majority of people working in IT, work in non-tech companies or public services where they provide essential enablers but not the core product or service being sold.Most of the time, they have the very same hard and soft skills that people work for a digital tech company, but they do not face the same challenges at all. Financial institutions with all their rules, size-related issues, and historical layers of complexity are a great place to start. Lucile is a great guest to start with.Now full disclosure number one. I also have the pleasure to host Lucile on stage at the API days conference. It was December 15th in Paris. She has talked in the sustainability track, which I had the pleasure to facilitate this year, and I strongly suggest you watch the recording of a presentation. And full disclosure number two.Since I posted about my struggle not reaching gender parity in this podcast this year, but it will be achieved next year. No worries. Lucile has connected me with at least a dozen of French female experts, I reckon. Because my message resonated with her conviction, but also because that is the way she's Lucille, a natural born giver, thriving to make people collaborate and connect to a greener tech world.So welcome, Lucile. I'm delighted to have you on the show. Lucile: Thank you. I can complete it.Gael: Yeah, absolutely. What did I miss in your bio? Lucile: Yes, I complete with a personal story so, I don't sleep much. I like to do yoga and body, but unfortunately, I haven't done any sports for a few months due to a semi, entire, cruciate ligament.Gael: Outch. Lucile: I like trekking, surfing and eating good food and drinking good wine with my family and my friends. I like to go to the cinema, and by the way, I recommend the last movies I've seen the Innocent by Louis Garrel. The Little Nicholas, I will say in English, but the famous sentence in French is "What are we waiting for to be happy?"(it's a French song) by Amandine Fredon et Benjamin Massoubre. Goliath by Frédéric Tellier. And it's quite funny because all the three films are French, but I like different kinds of movies and not only French movies. The last one isn't very happy and it's about an investigation into a pesticide. And it is inspired by Moo Papers and Moto five and involves the herbicide glyphosate. I also read a lot.Less since I have had children. Before I read no verse on the Metro when I lived in Paris. But since living in Nantes, I drive to work and so I have changed the books for podcasts and music. Gael: That's not good for the planet, except if you drive an EV. But that's good for me as a podcast host.Lucile: Yes. Yes. You are one of the podcasts I'm listening to. And now, I only read novels when I am on holiday. But I read a lot of scientific articles while I'm at work. Gael: That's funny because that's a debate among people. Like, do you read nonfiction books to clear your mind a bit? I must admit that I read less and less fiction and I'm more and more into non-fiction books, not necessarily, in the digital sustainability area, because I need to clear my mind a bit, but history, sociology, et cetera. I find it harder and harder to read a non-fiction book. Except if they're kind of like June, you know like they're fiction books, but they're like political strategy masterpieces or something like that. Lucile: But when I was a teenager, I read a lot of fiction, anticipation fiction, but now it's more about society.Gael: Yeah. Well, me too, I must admit. Me too. How did you become interested in the sustainability of our digital sector? Sustainability in general and the sustainability of a digital sector in the first place. Lucile: Yes. It's very late because it was when I was pregnant, that was 12 years ago. As a precaution for my child, I started eating organic food and wearing organic clothes, and I said to myself, I must be more aware of it.And I felt guilty about my children living in Paris with all the pollution. There was no garden. Furthermore, when they came back from vacation outside of Paris, within a few weeks, they lost their bright, clear voices again. And I remembered my very, very happy child was playing in the forest, big garden because my parents are living in a wood. So I started reading about pollution and climate change and then we decided to move to Nantes in 2017. I continued to educate myself on ecology and look for how I could support climate change. A colleague asked me to participate in a hackathon as a facilitator.And when I discovered the theme, it was IT for green. I wanted to take part in it. To prepare myself, it was in November 2018. I teach myself about digital technology and digital pollution. I discovered that digital was polluting a lot. Then, while digging, I read about the huge societal impact.Gael: Okay, so you've got this kind of a haha moment. You realize that, sustainability, digital sustainability is an issue, which is not something that most people, they wake up one morning and say, oh, by the way, I should investigate what is the environmental footprint of our digital world?And how do you manage to connect this with your job at BPC? Because you became someone very much involved in digital sustainability within the BPC. But how did it all start? Lucile: Earlier, I spoke about the hackathon, with my team we won it by offering E-Green. We propose the three following tools that will inform users of emails, and how polluting they are... a training module to raise awareness of the impacts of digital technology and share eco-friendly practices and an individual dashboard to monitor the reduction of its impacts. After this hackathon, I afford to obtain a budget for my company to implement our proposal. It was in 2018.The name was IBP, and IBP was the software edition entity of the Banque Populaire. I lead this project in conjunction with my work in the entrepreneurship model. I created an outlook tool to inform users how much their emails will impact the environment and how to decrease this impact...I created also a training model. And at the same time, I began to communicate on the company's social media platforms about digital impact, social media, like LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter.Gael: And all of this, you've done it as a side job? Regarding your main mission? It was not yet your main mission? It was a side mission that you kind of self-allocated to yourself?Lucile: Yes, because I wanted everyone to understand that digital is polluting activity. Gael: Yeah, I understand. No one prevented you to do so? You had no red light?Lucile: No. Gael: Okay. How did it accelerate? Lucile: In 2019, I followed groups: HR program leadership for women. This allows you to focus among over things on your professional project. I have thought a lot about what I can do about sustainability in the digital sector and my job.I wanted to be the contact person for the sustainability of the company. Because I was so passionate about this subject, I kept on speaking to my director about having a team to work on sustainability in IT. The first time he said that it will never be a priority in our company. But I came back, came back. And in 2020, after the lockdown when I questioned it again, he approved for me to prepare. I began to study the market and I discovered that the software edition entity of the Caisse d'Épargne, the other brand of the BPC group. It seemed to be very advanced in sustainable IT. I found a name, Philippe Derouet and I tried to call him. As he doesn't reply, he never replied to me. I wrote to him and he invited me to contact Cecile Maugé. Then I called her and what a surprise, that was my aha moment, she said to me: Oh, IBP, I have been trying to contact IBP for several months. Gael: That's interesting because when you work in such a big group, actually you've got people working on the same topics, willing to work together, but not having a clue that the other exists. So, that's very interesting.Lucile: Yes, we have a very big group, there are a lot of companies in my group. And Cecil was creating a sustainable digital team with the approval of the CTO, Laurent Benatar I immediately wrote to two members of the managing board, to inform them about the new team and that really would like to apply for this position.Gael: And this team, what was the output and outcome? Did you start, because you were part of this team, what did you start to achieve?Lucile: Firstly, we launched two actions. We educated ourselves by doing an online course and getting certified in sustainable IT. Our team members were people already very aware of the impacts of climate change, but everyone's knowledge was at different levels. Everyone in the team was very passionate about this project. We have partnered with a consulting firm specializing in CSR to order the level of our digital sustainability.We had an inventory of our strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. We didn't suffer because earlier I said that ITC worked on sustainable IT, but it did not exist, it was two major establishments.They had already started work on this subject. So what was surprising was that even companies that did not have a dedicated business plan for sustainable IT, had already worked on the real topics. So, on this basis, we have created a strategic plan. After, we worked on our first output for the employees.We reviewed the PowerPoint document template, shame on us, but before, the weight was 3.5 megabits, so it was too much. And we went from way heavier to 500 kilobits.Gael: I must admit, Lucile, that when you told me that, I was amazed because I never consider Powerpoint templates as being an issue. But obviously when you work in such a big company with people using this template to create thousands and thousands of presentations. It makes total sense. But I was like, oh yeah, thank you, captain. Obvious, but actually I never thought about it. So thanks a lot. And I'm pretty sure that quite a lot of our listeners will have the same surprise that I did. Lucile: Yes. And we will use it every day so. We officially committed to the group by signing the Sustainable Digital Charter of the INR and its Institute for Sustainable IT. And the signature was carried out in October 2020. And there's a sponsorship of the Ministry of Ecological transition. We did a lot of lobbying to sell our team and in particular to expand our team. And all this job was inside of our job. Gael: Lucile, by expanding the team, do you mean expanding in terms of head counts, budget or just raising more attention and people knowing that you exist?Lucile: All of that. Gael: We want your attention, we want your money, and we want your people. Yes. Okay. Join us. Lucile: Yes, all, 'cause we hadn't money when we began. It was always like an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur project. I was always in the fusion migration of another big project and Philip was the only guy who can work. He was full-time on this subject, but he was the only, but only guy.Gael: And what about this strategic plan? So you wrote it and what did it become? Lucile: Yes, the Executive Management validated the strategic plan that we proposed. And the best news about our strategic plan was that it has been incorporated into the group's strategic plan. So we were very surprised, very happy about that. And our sustainable IT strategic plan is divided into two goals: to decrease by 15% our IT carbon footprint by 2024 and to improve by 10% data centre efficiency. And, we have proposed five new projects as part of the strategic plan. Our first project was: to change the lifecycle of IT devices and hardware. Our goal is to lengthen the lifecycle between the manufacturer and the end of product life. Second project: design a sustainability software program, specifically for our projects. First project: data centre management and through the management and use of data is significantly more efficient for the project.Raise awareness and educate the staff. We are 100,000 employees in the BPC group. It is very important to educate, everyone. And we will communicate about the best practices and benefits related to sustainability. And the fifth project: creating KPIs to ensure we are constantly improving and reaching our set milestones.Gael: That's quite interesting that you mentioned KPI because for all these five projects and actually you already had measurable goals. When you say decreasing by 15%, the IT carbon footprint for instance. But for these five projects, how did you measure success? What were the expected benefits of these different projects and actually did you manage to finish or actually even kickstart all of them?Lucile: No, They're all in progress.Gael: Okay. Lucile: And the first success was to obtain a budget.Gael: Yeah.Lucile: So we started without a budget. When we obtain it, it was easier. Now we are several people working full-time in sustainable IT and we received three awards in less than one year.In December 2021, we were laureate of the sustainable digital trophy. In the strategy of organizations category by INR and it was under the sponsorship of Cedrico, the ex-Secretary of State for digital transition. In June 2022, we were winners of the Eco Code challenge: how green your app? And it was to expand Sonar Cube. It's a quality tool with eco-design rules. In October 2022 we were going for the trusted digitalization category. It was for the 2201 Ethno Spec about eco-design of digital services. I want to say that in general, institutions and organizations that adopt a sustainability approach will benefit from big gains. It allows efficiency gains, cost savings, energy savings, extended lifetime, and other units. And it permits reductions, reduction in staff turnover, greater customer satisfaction, increased motivation, improved quality and advanced company image. So, there are a lot of gains. Gael: Very interesting benefits. And did you notice some of them in BPC, like the staff turnover reduced a bit or did you see any improvement in the quality of the company brand? Lucile: Yes. So as I said we are in progress and KPIs are not the project, the KPI project is not the project where we have a lot of data. And we are building this indicator. But we can see that people are very happy to work with sustainable variety. There are a lot of people who ask me to work on this project. So it's a quality KPI. Gael: And, you know, talking about people. How did you manage the human side of your project? Because you started without a budget, with people having some, somehow a daily job and maybe their managers would let them have some bandwidth to work on digital sustainability, but that was not their main mission. What was the relationship between the different stakeholders involved and how did you manage to create obviously a positive momentum because you've got the three prices in less than two years?Lucile: Yes. So I work well using collective intelligence. Everyone has good ideas. And by having a discussion with different people, we can think more systemically and be more innovative.So I think soft skills are the most important. To be open-minded, transparent, kind and caring to the people and their ideas, to have strong values and ethics, inclusiveness, a sense of community, to be ecologically friendly, it's really easier to use this kind of collective intelligence.ICT sustainability is a young sector, very young sector. There is also Caroline from Birdeo. It is a recruitment agency specializing in CSR. She said there is currently a shortage of skills on the subjects of ecological and societal transition. And in the BPC group, we are very lucky because we have experts in our team.Our ambition is the upskilling of each employee. And many people join our team with no knowledge of the subject. But the most important fact is their motivation. If they want to make changes and contribute, it's the most important. It's our role to develop their skills. This is why we have chosen to build our team in-house with an exhaustive number of employees. Gael: So that's a very important point because that's a choice that very often big organizations face, they don't necessarily have all the resources in-house. And you made the choice to upscale employees rather than hiring mercenaries or expert companies to fill the gap for several months, sometimes even several years. Why did you do that? Lucile: Because it's a digital transformation. If you don't build a real digital transformation. Employees have to learn and have to grow up with this kind of mind. If you ask an external company, like a consultancy, or consultancy company to drive and do your digital transformation. It can't be a success. It can't succeed because the need is that your employees to change their minds. So it's easier if the company build this new kind of mine. Gael: Yeah, fair point. Fair. Lucile: It was easier for us because we are very lucky to have a highly knowledgeable and experienced person in our team, together with two expert companies, we don't do anything alone. These two companies were an easier group and we have produced training models that will support us in our printing programs. And we have chosen them for their values and have established trust in the relationship with them. We are aware that we have learned together.They're a number of us from BPCE will work with AFNOR. AFNOR is the French Standard Association and the CIGREF is the network of big French businesses and public administrations wishing to progress in digital technology. We work with ADN Ouest and it's a network of digital professionals from Britain and Pays de la Loire regions. We work with the Institute for Sustainable IT. Gael: Yeah, we know them now. Both upskilling employees, and building in-house teams, but still relying a lot on the big networks. That makes total sense. And above this network of experts and other organizations, do you use specific tools, specific norms, et cetera; when you push the digital sustainability topic within the BPC? Lucile: Yes. The foundation of our work is GR 40 91. It's the handbook of sustainable design of digital services published by the INR AFNOR Specs, Eco Design of Digital Services. We use and are still using Microsoft 365 and Teams. We use the files, the chat, and the video conferences and the for the history.Our team was created during the covid 19 pandemic. Everything was created remotely between people located all over France: Paris, Orleans, Rennes, and Aix en Provence.Gael: So, remote from day one.Lucile: Yes. So digital tools help to build our team. And we also use the company's social network newsletters and existing meetings because we make a lot of internal conferences to explain the impact and the benefits of sustainable IT. It's the lobbying I said before, and during our collaborative working group, we use Klaxoon, it is a startup from Rennes in the west of France that proposed this tool. It is a suite of collaborative tools for efficient teamwork online. We are creating an eco score to monitor whether we are sustainable by design, and to monitor our progress.Gael: You build your own tool on top of the existing tool. That's very interesting. And in general, knowing all this progress, I hope that the listeners that did not have the opportunity, because I'm not gonna say a chance, but to work in a very big organization, I hope they really consider, that really relies on the kind of amazing job that your team and yourself did because you changed a lot of things within a very big corporation.The BPC is a very big bank. It's actually the result of a merger between two big banks. It's a very strong coupled culture. You've got Natexis on top of it. That's really a nightmare, an organizational nightmare. Still, you manage to connect people, you manage to launch these projects, and you manage to win awards. That's just to put things in perspective with people working who has only worked in a medium-sized company or startup.What kind of advice would you give to someone willing the same as you did in a significant company or a very large company? Lucile: Yes. My advice is not only for big companies, I think it's for all. Firstly never give up.Particularly, when you believe in something and you consider that to be the most important thing to do. Secondly, a lot of people asked me who can lead a sustainable digital sector. An IT manager or a CSR manager? And I think, it could be an IT manager, it could be a CSR manager.But for me, anyone can do my job. If you are satisfied that we have to be more sustainable, you can do my job. As surprising as it may be. The BPC program director isn't from IT or CSR department. She comes from financial control. Gael: That's a very important point because what you're saying is that it's not a job, it's a role, and it's more a question of soft skills and, and being empowered enough with a strong mandate within your organization rather than having the job description.Lucile: The most important is soft skills. Because it's about a transformation. It also consists of a change of mentality and paradigm. We can learn CSR and IT and sustainable IT. But it's more difficult to learn the ability to explain this per flexibility and to negotiate with diplomacy...The last piece of advice, but it's not the least. Improve the life duration of the device in your company because it is the best practice. The device that pollutes the least is the one that is not manufactured. We really have to work on life duration. And there are a lot of other best practices.You can use a protective cover against shock. You can save battery life. You prefer smaller recharges to remain between 20 and 80% because it's better for the battery life and never expose devices to very high or very low temperatures and humidity. And if you have to change your device, prefer second-hand.If you need IT equipment, prefer to buy refurbished devices rather than purchasing new ones. Gael: And I can really concur because living on a tropical island. Unfortunately both my smartphone and my laptop, they've got a very hard time when the weather is hot and, and with a lot of humidity. That's really something that we should pay attention to.Lucile to be honest, beyond BPCE, you've got kind of a crazy life. You are also very active on different topics. If you had to pick one of the engagements something that you are involved in beyond BPC what would it be and could you tell our listeners a bit more about it?Lucile: Yes. I'm very lucky because I really like, I really love my job and I strongly recommend that people engage in association, in working groups, whether they are novice experts because I said before, but collective intelligence and the various discussions allow everyone to move forward and to build a common base for a more ethical and sustainable digital world.I am very active in three associations. INR, I am in strategy direction to racing digital technologies, promote sustainable tech and produce useful tools for everyone. I think INR can play a role and act as a lobbyist in France and in Europe and maybe more. I am in the sustainable IT community to increase awareness regarding good practices.I am in a feminist association because I'm a feminist since 2015 before I wasn't. In 2015, I followed an HR program, at a company, with a talented woman, and when my manager suggested me this program, I was very disappointed. And I ask him: Why not a company, talented people only?He told me that It was a really good program. So I accepted and I was very happy. It was a good program because it permits me to realize gender inequalities in societies and a lot of stereotypes. I really want everyone to know that. Gael: Can I interrupt you here, because I'm wondering, you're super active in this gender gap, this issue of lack of parity in this IT sector? Do you see some kind of link between sustainability and gender inequality? Lucile: Yes, because if you read the study of IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is evident that people who are already most vulnerable and marginalized will also experience the greatest impacts.And the United Nation said women are increasingly being seen as more vulnerable than men to the impact of climate change. Mainly because they represent the majority of the world's poor and, the difference between men and women can also be seen in their differential roles, responsibilities, decision-making, access to land and natural resources and access to opportunities and needs.I really think we have to work on inequality, gender inequalities and climate change.Gael: In tech most specifically, that's a hundred per cent true, at least backed up by many studies. In tech, and regarding digital sustainability, do you see a link as well?Lucile: Yes. In general, I don't know if you see but in September this year, there is the new IMAGREEN KANTAR barometer published in September 2022. In private companies with 100 or more employees, 39% of employees feel a difference between their convictions and socio-ecological issues, the jobs they do and the activities of their company.More and more people want to have meaningful work. I think companies and government will have no choice now, but they have to adapt this way of thinking. I'm really sure that digital sustainability can attract an organization. We can see that mentality is now changing. There is more and more criticism of our consumer society. Studies have confirmed that dynamic is led mostly by humans and the more educated people. Unfortunately, the digital industry has only 15% of humans in technical and engineering profiles and is relatively absent.Not many stay because I don't know if you'd know, but one in two women leave the tech after eight years of work. There are various reasons ceiling, the negative balance between professional and private life, toxicity, and abuse, ... I really think that gender equality in the tech and digital sector is a very big challenge, and I'm sure digital sustainability can serve to attract women into them.Earlier I spoke about women being victims of climate change, but I think we can also be seen as active and effective, promoters of edited adaptation and mitigation. I'm very proud because, in the BPC group, our sustainable digital management team is composed of women. We are six women out of eight, so it means 75% are women and it's quite rare.Gael: Yeah. It's not that rare in the sustainability field in CSR et cetera. I tend to meet more women than men. So that's good news because it can offset a bit, as you say, the imbalance between that gender imbalance that you have in the tech sector, that's taking an even further step back. Talking more about the evolution of digital sustainability in general, what is the trend that you witnessed recently? Could you share with us if you were rather positive or negative regarding greening? Even if I know that you don't really like this word, but greening or digital word or reducing the environmental footprint of the ICT sector?Lucile: I'm optimistic because I think that if we explain all of these negative impacts. People can change because we don't think about that. We only think about the good, and the positive impact of digital tools. But we have to think that there are tools, only. We can choose what kind of world we want, thanks to these tools. I really think we live in a time of big change and it could be very stressful because of the disastrous effect I said before, but at the same time, I think it is very exciting and interesting. We must, we have to build a new world. We have to rethink our lifestyles, our infrastructures, and our ways of thinking because we have to be more ethical and more equitable, more inclusive, and more aware.Gael: If you had to pick only two references, whether it's a book, a podcast, a study, et cetera, that you would like to share with the listeners in English? What would it be? And I have to tell my listeners first that when we prepared this episode, Lucile gave me one of the most comprehensive lists of resources I've ever seen. Most of them are in French, so I will put all of them in the show notes. The episode notes will be pretty full this time, quite a lot for each episode, but this time it's pretty crazy. But what would be your top two? Lucile: I really recommend the Digital Collage or the Digital Fresco because it's a very amazing tool to understand the impact. I recommend a sustainable IT MOOC by INRIA in English. In French, I recommend the different tools proposed by INR in English. There is My Impact, the Sustainable IT Services Design handbook and the Directory of Sustainable IT experts. There is a list of English tools. They're available on the website and I recommend seeing the Social Dilemma it's a documentary investigation of social media and it shows how social media is designed, regulated, and used. They could have individual and collective consequences and their growing dependence. This investigation is good because it's not about the environmental impact, but the social impact.Gael: Okay. Thanks a lot for all those references, your top three and actually all the others that I will put in the show notes. Thanks a lot. I hope that a lot of listeners, especially those working in a big organization, will find inspiration following your example, you're pretty easy to reach via LinkedIn.So I guess if someone wants to share tips, especially a woman willing to get empowered a bit, your door will be open. Am I right? Lucile: Yes, yes.Gael: I've already noticed it. So that was a very safe bet. Thanks a lot, Lucile for being on the show. That was super enlightening, kind of a time travel bit for me when I used to work with not in, but with big banks and big corporations.So I really appreciate all the job that you've done in BPC and beyond. So thanks a lot. It was a pleasure to have you on the show. And that's it.Lucile: Thank you, Gael.❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

In this episode, Gaël Duez went to Argentina (or did he?) to discuss digital agencies. Guests Vineeta Greenwood and Gavin Shinfield share a passion for communicating sustainability in ways that their clients can connect to. Veterans of the B-Corp movement, they also prize collaboration and honesty, two keys to their success, and indeed our collective success in reaching our sustainability goals. Gaël invites them to play a short game that leads to long and meaningful answers … stay tuned 🤓❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guest and connect: Vineeta's LinkedInGavin's LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green I/O website 📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   Gavin and Vineeta’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:Wholegrain Ethical Screening Policy 🔎About B Corp Certification ✅What is Ruby on Rails? 🛑 🔛🛤Sustainable Web Design by Tom Greenwood 📗BIMA Sustainability Council 🍃Web Environmental Sustainability Guidelines by BIMA 📏Wholegrain Digital’s Efficiency by Design 🍥Rethink Single-Use Content | Brilliant Noise 🔂Good Agencies Summit 🗻Reflections on Running a Sustainable Digital Agency | Branch Magazine 🕊Carbon Offsets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) 2️⃣ 🌒Climeworks Direct Air Capture 🥅Hannah Smith, Sustainable Digital Tech Consultant 🍏Oxymoron by Tom Greenwood ⌨️The Handbook of Sustainable Design of Digital Services | ISIT 📓HTTP Archive Sustainability Report 🏛The why of website optimisation | Fershad Irani 🕸Sustainable Web Design dot Org 👨‍🎨Digital Decluttering Toolkit 🧰Designing for Sustainability by Tim Frick  📗Business declares 📣Transcript Gaël  00:06Hello, everyone. Today we will go to Argentina and talk about digital agencies. Full disclosure, number one digital agencies is a domain I simply don't know. And that I didn't consider until very recently on my journey in the digital sustainability landscape. To be honest, I come from a world where you have in house teams developing your digital tech platforms, not even websites anymore. And I didn't have any interaction with agencies, but Wakey wakey Gaël, this is the exception, not the rule. Most companies rarely have one developer or designer and the in the US only, for instance, according to some estimates, more than 7500 agencies operate on the road to a carbon free internet and more broadly to a digital sustainability. They are the ones setting the pace outside the digital pure players who tend to catch all the spotlights. Now full disclosure number two, we won't go to Argentina this time, but we will enjoy a superb Tango dance. Because our two guests today Vineeta and Gavin are great dancer in the game of seduction, but also pose setback repulsion with their clients to convince them about adopting sustainable approaches, managing their dabs, understanding their true needs, make a compromise while remaining true to their values. And the interesting thing is that they both operate in the UK. They are both labeled B Corp and steel. They each have their own 10 steps. But let's talk about our dancers in more details. Vineeta is a trailblazer in digital sustainability. based in London, she founded Walgreen digital award press agency with her husband, Tom 15 years ago with sustainability in mind from day one. Vineeta also holds a degree in electronics from the Mumbai University and a Master in communication in space environment from the Lancaster University. And she's very active in the impact business world from touring Beco businesses in the UK this year to supporting the business declares Tribune last summer. Gavin is the survivor has he liked to say he has founded kn almost 20 years ago, after a successful career as a creative director. He's based in Zurich, Switzerland, and holds a BA in history of art. He is also a vocal voice in the sustainability world. Welcome both of you. It's great to have you on the show today.Gavin Shinfield  02:38Thank you again, wonderful to be here.Vineeta Greenwood  02:40Thank you for having me.Gaël  02:41It's a pleasure and an honor. I'd like to start with a question I asked to all my guests, which is what did I miss in your bio? Did I forget to mention anything about you?Vineeta Greenwood  02:53I don't think you forgot to mention about me. I never told you about it. I'm extremely passionate about composting. And I absolutely love to see what can be composted and how it's going to be biodegradable. And I've got a real interest in it that that's outside my digital world.Gavin Shinfield  03:14That's fantastic. Vineeta i Since moving to Zurich for it my my gardening has been curtailed somewhat because I'm now in a fifth four apartments but we still have our window boxes and I and and obviously we we compostable our food waste it just it it goes to the to the stratospheric rather than into my garden right now. I'm a I guess on a personal level girl I'm I'm a keen hiker which again wonderful to be in Switzerland to to do that. And also I love freshwater swimming so equally Zurich wonderful place to be because I'm only 10 minutes from the lake here.Vineeta Greenwood  03:55Yeah, I love cold water swimming as well that is an absolute passion of mineGavin Shinfield  04:02you'll you'll notice we need to I said freshwater swimming I'm still working up to the cold part butVineeta Greenwood  04:11yeah, tunic Lake is amazing for that. We've used the special you know the boobs, where you can leave your stuff and then go in Zurich like it's it's a pretty special place.Gavin Shinfield  04:21It's a wonderful place, we will have to go for a swim together next time you'll have anything.Vineeta Greenwood  04:26Absolutely.Gaël  04:28And I feel very connected to both of you because in law who knew I've got a big compost unit in my garden. Pretty much everyone does. And well, when it comes to hiking. I heard we've got a few mountains. So it's great to have both your hobbies being explained on the show. And to start the interview. I'd love both of you to describe the journey your agencies took on the sustainability road. How did it start? What did it take? How did you overcome the challenges, and cetera, et cetera, and maybe starting with you Vineeta.Vineeta Greenwood  05:06Yeah, happy to Tom, my husband and I were best friends before we got married, and started the business before we got married. So it was it goes a long way back. And the reason we started our own business is because we realize that the people who are doing good in this world aren't getting the right branding assistance, or they're not being presented side by side of a non sustainable option. So when we started in 2007, before that, we used to notice that an eco friendly product was seen as a hippie product rather than a mainstream product. And our intention of working together and coming up with good branding, good websites, and so on, was to give sustainable products an equal stage, and given opportunity to them to present alongside a non sustainable product so that people could make a better choice. That's how it all started. That's how our concept of starting our own business came about. Once we had started thinking about what we want to do, then we started wondering about how we could help people and then it came out in the wash that we'd like to do branding, websites, help people have a good digital presence. And then we came across WordPress, and WordPress was a real hallelujah moment where, because we were customer first, we are customer first, as a team. As our approach. It was important to us for finding a system that the customers feel extremely happy with. And then we can also specialize in. So it feels like a real marriage rather than a something that we're good at. And we have proprietary or something like that. So we became the first London's London's first UK is first WordPress agency. And I remember knocking on many doors and saying you should specialize in WordPress to guys, this is an amazing thing. And lo and behold, we have a lot of competitors now. Great. It also because we were so sustainability minded, it didn't even occur to us to not work or to work with people who were not conscious about sustainability. But it's only in 2009, that we came to a conclusion that we need a formalized ethical screening policy, and for the clients that we take on. So we created one, it's online. And it's, it's what shaped us, I would say that is what shaped our business. And that is when I feel like we really got started because we now had said, this is the type of client we want to work with. This is the sort of service we want to offer. And this is what we're good at. And that sort of shaped the type of team members we hired, the type of clients that came on board. And I can go on and on about our passion for sustainability not just mine and Tom's but the whole team'sGavin Shinfield  08:10thanks for Anita. There's a fantastic rundown and the history of wholegrain. With with kindness, that was a slightly different story and a different down step as it said, Gail, we we didn't start out with with sustainability in mind, we started out with building a good business in mind. And we've always been very people focused and always been operating and fair and transparent with our dealings in our clients with our suppliers. So to a degree, I think you could say that we were operating kind of as what B Corp would term as a good business, but not necessarily the purpose driven the you know, the intentional business that the B Corp aims towards. And I think it's really going through B Corp certification. That's, that has changed our mind somewhat on that. And we're now bringing more of that intentionality into it. I think really, it's just sometimes going through these processes that really focuses and you realize that that what what is actually important to you as a business. And I think it bringing the intentionality it's always best to start from the inside. So to get your own house in order to make sure that your operations are sustainable. We know that you start with the core, you start getting the team on board thereafter and it's the outreach to suppliers. And then once you've got everything and you're happy in your own skin as it were, that's when you can start having those those discussions with your clients as well. And that's where we are as a company right now. I feel Um, our businesses is rather than websites rather than than WordPress and content management websites, it's, it's purely on the digital products and digital transformation. So we're a Ruby on Rails team. We have been since 2005, which was when it was commercially, first commercially available, and we build custom platforms that that help businesses improve. And I think that's in the first instance, that's obviously improving on their bottom line that helps them be more efficient. But then I feel now that we can have those conversations around environmental efficiencies. And, you know, just working smarter and and helping them look after their digital carbon footprint as well.Gaël  10:55You are boasts privileged witnesses and this disorder sustainably landscape. And we'd love to offer you to do a little game. It won't be a quiz this time that was for Tim, in the Tim Frick in his hip visit, but more keywords race. And I'd like to put a word on the table with just a bit of an explanation and let you react to it. So if you're okay. I think I could start with the first one. You're you're in both of you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so the first ones, actually two ones.Gaël  11:36In gave in you, you're already spoiled. A bit not not spoiled. Sorry, but you already heard the name.Gavin Shinfield  11:44I'm winning already.Gaël  11:46Actually, none of that spoiler spoiler alert. You already spoiled a bit the audience because the first word that I wanted to put on the table is sustainable design. So two words, what can be done? When your digital agencies how, what is the leeway an agency has regardless of its client requirements? So who wants to react first to sustainable design?Gavin Shinfield  12:12Well, I feel that actually this is this is totally the whole greens, raison d'etre are given that that's the Vineeta is husband Tom totally wrote the book on this sustainable web design, quite literally. It's a fantastic read. I know that it's been mentioned in the in the podcast many times scale, but I will, I'll put my, my stamp behind it as well. So yeah, there are many ways that we can that we can get involved on this. One of the ones that that we're pushing forward at the moment is I'm a member of the Bema Sustainability Council. And we are building on top of a lot of the work that has already been done by Tom, by Tim freq, who's also got, you've got mentioned previously here, and all of the good work from Chris Adams and their green Web Foundation, lots and lots of different resources out there. But what we're trying to do is to distill them into a more actionable set of guidelines, specifically function are focused on on what commercial teams and agencies can do. Because I think sometimes a lot of people feel like there's they don't know where to start with reducing their online carbon. So So that's, that's one of the main things that we're pushing forward right now. And we hope to have those the first couple of those released for the end of the year. So watch this space on that one.Gaël  13:51Okay, and could you share already some insights on some actionable tips that are not covered by the seal of secret,Gavin Shinfield  14:00reducing waste, making sure that we have, we have low low carbon design patterns in place? It focuses on obviously, all of the good things that have already come out of out of the focus on optimization and accessibility and all and all of the all of the reduced data transfer online.Gaël  14:26And Vineeta. I guess you'd like to add many things because, as Kevin said, this is the area of expertise over Wahlgren digital.Vineeta Greenwood  14:35Yeah, I love talking about it, and I can go on about it. So you will have to stop me. Just kidding. I try to keep it really short. It's it's a real it's a real combination of how you look at sustainability in design. You think about what performance the in our case or what performance the design is going to have. What performance benefit the code is going to have. And that all plays a huge part in what we do. So the design and content, how the copy is written and how the user experience is created, so that you are giving utmost respect to your user. You're respecting their time you respect the inspecting their bandwidth for their mobile data, you're respecting the location they are by producing information that's relevant to them. But he also then thinking of the benefits that are going to the SEO, because your search engine optimization plays on how fast your site loads, more benefits are brought in from low carbon design, which is sustainable design. They sort of span the whole, what I call it, like the ecosystem that clients want to hear. So they improve accessibility inclusivity, it reduces your hosting costs, it makes your work easier to maintain when you add is sustainable. Of course, like I said, it improves your user experience, and improves your conversion optimization. And most importantly, by stealth introduces low carbon and energy conservation. Sustainable Design is quite a wide topic, and you're doing an entire podcast series on this. So it's not, it's not one thing. It's like it's like a kaleidoscope, you know, one of those kaleidoscopes, which you can just keep seeing new colors. That's how I feel about sustainable design. Every time you look at it, you see a new angle. And that's the beauty that we can engage all of these agencies and freelancers who start who have started to do things in a beautiful way and sort of taking it forward than what we've done. And I'm very excited about that.Gaël  16:50Respect your user, that one is excellent in to describe what is sustainable design. And actually, that that leads me to my second word, and it's very related to what both of you said previously, which is clients, and how to partner with them to deliver greener digital products and services, what, you know, what are the main challenges and how to overcome them? And I'd really like to stress that I believe this is one of the core question, you are the one on the front line, or convincing people to put something on the edge in data that might have not been there before. So I'm really curious. And I know that a lot of the people listening to this episode, they want to hear what can be done, what cannot be done, what are the successes or challenges. It's unique relationship that digital agencies they have with clients that will shape the paths toward a sustainable Web.Gavin Shinfield  17:49As far as clients go, I think we're with it does feel like we're we're reaching a bit of a tipping point on this. Already, we do see clients coming to us with with this on their agenda, it may not be top of their agenda. In fact, it hasn't been top of the agenda so far. But we're certainly getting getting people coming to us and and referencing that they had certain targets that they want to meet them, certainly internally ESG targets. And they recognize the part that digital plays in that. So it is coming down the line on whether that's because they know that they need to meet some of the coming Carbon Disclosure regulations, or whether it just met meshes with their overall ESG guidelines as well, which whatever the reason, it's just really heartening to see that starting to come when it doesn't come from the client. If the conversation needs to be initiated. From the agency side, then obviously, that's, that's, that's a harder sell. And for some people, it's just not on their radar, I think it was time sort of minded of the bad old days, when we when we had to talk to clients about website accessibility. And you got the responses, oh, we don't need to do that, because we don't have a disabled users. Whereas now I think that that battle has largely been won. And it's largely been won by agencies taking agencies and web creators, web developers, web designers to take it on to onto themselves to to develop at least, you know, a good baseline of accessibility for for them for their websites and for their web applications. And that's just the way we do it. That's sort of seen as normal now, and I think we need to get to the same place with environmental sustainability. So I think to a degree Yes, we can have those discussions with the client and explain why we've taken certain discussions and and how they can help support Look at but to you, it also just has to become, like Anita said second nature and somewhat baked into the overall approach.Gaël  20:12Benito, you want to?Vineeta Greenwood  20:14I'd love to but I forgotten the questionGaël  20:18client and how to partner with them.Vineeta Greenwood  20:21Yes, clients, that's my favorite thing in a way, why I'm in this business. It's amazing to have an amazing team. But there's needs to be somebody you serve. And that's where the satisfaction comes from. We all find satisfaction from giving rather than receiving, I think that's something that's human nature. It's a bit like, I don't I sound like I'm digressing. But when the person who gives the present on a Christmas Day, for example, is the one who actually gets more pleasure out of out of it than the person who receives it. And that's something that is forgotten. And that's what we do for clients where we're producing something that we know is of really high quality, and giving it to clients, and then you see the pleasure on their face. And that sort of lights us up that that's how we I see clients in in our business. So the challenge that you talked about, very briefly, we talked about what are the challenges, sometimes the challenge is to make sure that the high quality craft that we have is accessible within their budget and their timeline? And how do you show them the value, sort of giving them a new macro lens and showing them, hey, this is what we're doing. And this is why we're doing it and go along with this journey. And we'll show you how you're going to benefit from it is sometimes a challenge. And although it's a fun experience, at the end, when the product is complete, to get them on the journey, sometimes a challenge to it to get the right stakeholders in the room is sometimes a challenge. Like Gavin said, if the brief already states that they are interested in sustainability, that battle is not a battle anymore, because they are already advocates of sustainability. But if they're if they haven't mentioned sustainability, and have just mentioned ROI, then your return on investment, then then you really need to start thinking about how to explain what the return on investment is by involving sustainability, and actually display on the benefits of improved accessibility and reduced costs of maintenance and hosting and better performance. And then that all plays into nicely with sustainability. So those challenges are real. And you just have to sort of dance around them as they come into your inbox. And I think I think the beauty of having digital sustainability and sustainability advocates on the team is that they find answers on how it's going to benefit the client, I think it's quite important to play on the benefits than just talking about sustainability. Sustainability should be a big, like accessibility standard. So they don't have to question it. So the product always is serving the client to the best and they are excited about it. But then sustainability sort of is this thing that they don't have to ask you about. It just happens in the background. And when it happens, and then they go and check their results on say website carbon calculator. They realize, Oh, my website's low carbon, how brilliant. So it's like, instead of making it a challenge, we try to sort of enroll the client into our thinking and see, see how it pans out.Gavin Shinfield  23:58And that's a really good point in terms of not making sustainability a poor cousin, we shouldn't we should never see that. Like, just because we are making your website sustainable, that doesn't mean that we're wearing a hair shirt. Where are you going to know that we're going to have any less of an experience? I think that's where the challenge lies, because I think certainly some of the people working at the fringes of office are trying to produce the most environmentally friendly websites, perhaps may take things a step too far for for certain clients tastes but I think the challenge is for us is to is to is to give deliver these amazing world class experiences and, and fantastic usability and stunning design while still delivering it on on reduced bandwidth presents and that's the those are some of the skills that have somewhat been lost in our heavy broadband age.Gaël  25:00But to wrap up, what you've both say is that actually you don't put sustainability on the table as a goal in itself, it rises as an enabler like accessibility. And you really put the benefits for the client first. And then in the way you design things, you incorporate sustainability from the very beginning, I believe, if you need to correct me if I'm wrong, this is what is coined at World Grand digital as efficiency by design. Am I right?Vineeta Greenwood  25:27Yes, absolutely. So we talk about efficiency in user experience efficiency in the design process efficiency in the recording process, and, and try to give that the center stage rather than talking about sustainability, just just exactly like Gavin, and you said, efficiency, by design touches on the points of efficiency, because who doesn't like efficiency, who doesn't like things done quickly, efficiently, it's like a new set of magic words that clients want to hear, because it just satisfies all of their needs, whether that be monetary or time. And those are the two biggest currencies we have, right.Gavin Shinfield  26:09And also we need to, we need to focus on not just on our outputs, but on our processes and making those the most efficient. I think I read a wonderful article from fellow B Corp, brilliant noise, and a parish that was talking about efficiency and contents and rethinking single use content where she was talking about the need to treat content assets in the same way that we treat our, our digital assets in our, you know, in our design systems. So one of the things that in the web environmental sustainability guidelines is to is about not just not not necessarily purely focusing on reducing page weight and reducing the size of the assets, but also working smarter with those assets, making sure that we follow processes so that we're not re coding and providing the product bloats, particularly in on the on the application development. But what what Adam was talking about is treating, basically having an atomic design system for content, whereby once you get to a large scale content and advertising, there are massive savings to be made from working efficiency point of view, for therefore from, from a cost perspective for the client. And also, by extension, there's a there's a carbon savings by not not producing more content and not producing more designers actually needed.Gaël  27:48So all in all, what you're saying is that you've got quite a lot of leeway in doing things the way you want without having to ask your client, yes or no, or any kind of green light in designing things efficiently, that the client should not be an excuse to go pretty far on the sustainability journey. Don't get me wrong, if he if he or she wants five videos, full backup, on the very same page, etc, you will be stuck at some point it still there is still some stuff that you can do like explaining that you you will download an image only first, instead of a YouTube player and it's crazy a webpage, for instance. But anyway, sorry, it's me rambling. But um, but I think that the main message is that you can do things and you've got a good enough leeway to start doing things without really having to convince your client of anything. And then obviously, the next step is, yeah, for some of the challenges that you that that requires your clients to be to be aligned with making efforts to become sustainable.Gavin Shinfield  28:57I agree with that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.Gaël  29:00Okay. Okay. That's very interesting that that's very empowering, I would say, because a lot of designer, a lot of developers like a go, I would love to do things, but I cannot really do it. I can't afford to. That's very interesting. Thanks a lot for the clarification. And I suggest we move on to the next word. And this one, I guess, is a bit more for Gavin than for Vineeta. Because we need that already spontaneously spoke a lot about about them, but it's teams, how to onboard the teams into a digital sustainability journey. And does it impact the turnover? Does it change the recruitment process? How did it go? Gavin because you didn't start with sustainability in mind from day one, I would sayGavin Shinfield  29:45no, that's That's correct. And to be honest, I think it's it's a it's a process that we're very much undergoing at present. There are leading voices within the team, who are very engaged on on on in the world of dish for sustainability, and there are there are certain areas where where we need to, we need to share that knowledge more widely. But I think it's one of the areas that that impacts every every part of the process, from the strategy to the UX to the creative design. It's not just something that needs to be implemented by the front end teams and and then the data teams making sure that we've got, you know, everything is compressed as possible. It has to come, right the way through the process, following round to the to the QA teams as well. Yeah, so there's, it really does touch every area. But I think it's it's just a case of learning by doing and, and sharing, sharing information and sharing techniques. As we go, are we we have, we have a fairly well documented process for our strategy, UX, creative teams, and also within the builds thing, so it's a case of bringing those sustainable checks and balances to throughout the entire process. What it can't be, is just, oh, have we have we run this through the sustainability checklist? I think, you know, it's, it's something that just needs to be embedded in the thought and DNA on the project from the start. So that's where what we're doing at the moment is looking at all of the current documentation, and, and seeing where we put these checks and balances in place to make sure that we don't come to the end of the project, and then go, Oh, now we need to start thinking about this. Because that Rescher, that type of retrofitting just isn't going to work.Gaël  31:49In my my next word would be B Corp. About the B Corp movement. You know, I recently interviewed another pioneer, Tim Frick, we already mentioned him, he shared his enthusiasm for this label is confidence also that the momentum will only increase? Do you share the same confidence both of you?Gavin Shinfield  32:12I think we're both very vocal proponents of the core framework and the B core ethos of using business as a force for good. So very simple proposition. Really, if we if you live there live that. As I mentioned earlier, I think it's been really transformational. And not only from myself from my personal journey, but for the company going through B Corp, it really has helped us focus my onto onto the house how to be incrementally better. And I think that's what a lot of people perhaps when I think with some of the criticism that because it's been getting lately, people, some people have have have highlighted a couple of companies who have achieved certification who they think may or may not have warranted that I think what's what's being missed when people take that stance is that B Corp isn't a beatification for companies. It's not saying, you know, you you've done, you've done everything you can, you've now got this, this wonderful badge and, and your work here is done. It's saying that you've achieved a certain level and are committing to improve on that year on year, day by day, the call isn't in all of itself. A thing it isn't, it isn't, it isn't a thing to achieve. It's, it's a it's a framework, it's a system for running your business and helping to improve it. As you go forward into the future.Vineeta Greenwood  33:57I quite agree it's a framework, it's a framework to help each other, see where you're falling short, and learn from each other. The word that keeps coming to my mind when we talk about B Corp is not the framework and the the the B impact assessment, but the community. And the beauty of this community is that they all have been through this rigorous framework, and they know how hard it is. So they want to help each other improve not just their scores, but their businesses. And when you speak to another business owner, you have empathy of the journey they've been through the struggles they've been through, and how hard it is to continually improve when you still try to make finances work. You know, you're trying to pay salaries, and when clients and when trust while doing this other thing, which is improving your social workers, government workers, governance, all of these categories and you Want to speak with somebody who's done it better than you. And the nice thing about the B Corp community is that you can speak to someone, and they are willing to share. And that's the beauty of being in the B Corp community. So even if it's not, it might not be perfect. Like Gavin said, there are some companies that might get through because of whatever reasons. The truth is, that it is a place where you can feel safe and learn from each other and improve not just your business, but your understanding of how other businesses run.Gavin Shinfield  35:34Yeah, that's that's absolutely true. The community around around the clock is wonderful. We're just establishing a be local group in Surrey, which is, which is lacking at the moment. So and it's it's just amazing to the connection it gives you to all sorts of different types of businesses. And the willingness to to be open and to share is very tangible in that community. You're absolutely right there Vineeta.Gaël  36:08My next word is kind of connected to what you just said. And this is piers, how to make an impact in the agency world. Did sustainability become a topic in the agency Nomex to reuse the name of this podcast given that you were recently invited to?Gavin Shinfield  36:31Yeah, yes, no, absolutely. There's, it's I'm just going to talk about B Corp again there. But the whole notion of sustainability is getting massive recognition right now in the in the agency space, I just spoke at the agency hackers agency, good agencies Conference, which is, which is purely purely around this topic, and covered a lot of the things that we've been talking about today. I, as I've said I'm worthy, I'm a member of the BMS Sustainability Council beamer is the British Interactive Media Association is the largest trade group for for agencies and I know wholegrain are our members as well. They have the Sustainability Council, under the auspices of Beamer, I also ran a seven month free program of B Corp boot camps for other agencies looking to become certified. So yeah, it's a it's a it's a really hot topic right now. And the number, it seems that every other agency that you speak to is, is considering the B Corp certification or is already on the journeyGaël  37:50Vineeta I just like to bring back this article I mentioned the one that Tolman and you wrote in branch magazine, because that's interesting what Gavin just said, because Tom and you, you've wrote about the challenge of being honest and transparent, open and honest, I remember the words, because you say that there is a lot of bravado and marketing hype in the agency world. And everyone, you know, claims to be perfect, and you cannot really add me to flows, I think use the word, risky marketing strategy. And the problem was the sustainability on days that you make mistake every day, almost every day. And it's really a learning by doing journey. So isn't it hard for a marketing agency to embark on a journey where it might have to admit flows and mistakes in front of others? Despite all of this peer pressure tends to be always, you know, the the shiniest one, etc, etc. How do you deal with such a challenge?Vineeta Greenwood  39:00I think people appreciate honesty and authenticity. They appreciate you telling them about that your failures more than you realize, when you tell somebody, this is where I stumbled, you're pointing that stone that you stumbled on so that others don't. And that's the open source community. That's the point of community. That's how we all as humans survived. And therefore, I don't see it as a challenge of telling somebody where we failed. And when I tell somebody where we have stumbled, they have been more empathetic than not, it doesn't make us look the shiniest. But if you've met Tom or me in person, we're not the shiniest looking people anyway, and we're pretty honest. You see me wearing makeup and looking the prettiest but I know what I'm doing and that's what clients see. That's what bears see. And they have mutual respect because you know that they are good at their craft. And that's where I feel the authenticity is what matters. So telling people your true story, even when you fell down and got up, it actually makes people feel like, yeah, you're human, just like me. And we all have been through all this difficult spirals, where you feel like, When is this gonna be better again, but then we come out the other side, don't we? So it's, it's like a sharing challenges on what you're facing is something that wholegrain has done for many, many years through blogs, through public articles. And I think that has won the hearts of other people as well, because they can relate to it rather than going, Oh, they want a shiny Award, which we don't win many awards anyway. It's, it's intentional, because that's not a part of our strategy. Authenticity is a part of our strategy. So we we stay, so we stay true to who we are.Gaël  41:08Indeed, you shared quite a lot.Gavin Shinfield  41:10Can I just say, Vineeta? I think, as far as you and and Tom go, it's your authenticity that makes you shine? Oh, I think I totally agree. I think maybe what, what Gail's referring to it's gotten somewhat of that the old thinking of, of agency world where ever it was very much competitive to the big mega agencies sort of duking it out at the top, I think we've we've, we feel like we're, we're moving beyond that now. And there is in the, in the sustainability community, definitely. But I also think in, in the, in the agency land, in the community, amongst agencies, I think there is a there is a real network of support, like I've not really experienced elsewhere in commercial life, and I think you're right, the, you know, the, the celebration of our humanity, and the fact that it is it is, it is a struggle, it's a it's a it's a hard business to be in. And if you take your eye off the ball, the adage goes, as you know, you're only three phone calls away from, from the agency going under is very busy, sometimes operating on quite slim margins, and knife edge of profitability. So you know, the fact that we are able to be open and to share these things with each other, and to support each other is actually now a trademark of agencies. Whereas maybe it wasn't in the battle days,Gaël  42:55quite a lot of evolution in the way you do business, which is a nice transition with my almost last word, which is regenerative business, selecting clients or selecting missions, to be sure that they do have an positive impact on the world. I know that is something that will drain digital has been focusing from the very beginning, what was the process that you actually open sourced? But um, could you both of you elaborate a bit of how it resonates? This, there's two words sorry, the regenerative business.Vineeta Greenwood  43:34There's resilience in our business that's regenerative. And a business that actually can feed not just itself, but its community around is a regenerative business. So you're spreading the knowledge and sort of not becoming just a thought leader, but also feeding the thing that you're trying to promote through everybody else. So that's how I feel about digital sustainability. So with with the way we run our business, it has helped become regenerative because people have also put their effort into talking about the things we're talking about. So I feel like the regenerative is is a very involved term and so many different angles that you can talk about how you regenerate, but I'm gonna give Gavin Gavin the opportunity because I think he'll be better at answering this question.Gavin Shinfield  44:35I don't know about that beneath I'll give it a go. I think for me, the regenerative level is helpful. It's positive. Because I think if you if we just take it from a pure linguistic point of view, sustainability is that doesn't really feel like a goal. In the same way that net zero doesn't really feel like a goal you're moving toward to the to this status quo you're moving towards where things should be. But that's just equilibrium, I think to, to then tip over to the next positive round of business, the next way of thinking about things is to say, Yeah, sustainability is one thing, but we do need to be regenerative. And that doesn't mean necessarily, you know, it's not like a whole transformation piece and you're moving from a sustainable business to a regenerative business, it's more to just to do with the mindset of thinking about business in the round. And the fact that if the world is a better place, because your company exists, then you are regenerative business, in whatever way that is, with what you're able to give back to the community to share on on a wider, wider, wider basis to to improve the health and well being of your employees over and above just providing good employment that makes you a regenerative business. It's a term that's being bandied around a lot in regenerative farming regenerative industry, but I think it's a it's a helpful and aspirational label. But it doesn't mean we should stop thinking about sustainable business.Vineeta Greenwood  46:23Yeah, I think that's the bet about regenerative as you're giving back more than you are taking away from wherever you are, whether that be farming or in business world, you're sort of contributing constantly, of course, not at the expense of your health, but you're contributing to the greater cause. And that sort of feeds back into your business as even as goodwill. Absolutely. Yeah.Gaël  46:53Yeah, fair point. I'd like to finish with sometimes a bit more controversial word. But I believe that it's a discussion you have quite often with your clients. And this is offset word about carbon offsetting. He had an issue if you've seen this episode, but John Oliver, in one of his last week, tonight's show had this very provocative sentence like you cannot offset our way out of climate change. And to be honest, the lows of climate physics are on his side. But still planting trees when wisely Don also contributes to capture carbon and support biodiversity. So what's your stance on this? Do you use this within your business? Do you discuss it with your clients?Vineeta Greenwood  47:38Yeah, we do offset it. But big like John Oliver, I do believe in the concept that you can't expect a if you just translate it to normal life, you can't tell some somebody, Hey, here's some money, you don't cheat on your wife so that I can, that's what offsetting is, in a way. And it's a very controversial term, because you're trying to, when you're offsetting, you're trying to sort of, say, I did something bad. But here's some candy so that you forget about it. But at the same time, it's the what the focus should be on reduction of carbon emissions. And if there is a reason to offset because you couldn't reduce it any further, which is, in our cases, well, then offset does become really important. And then that's where the word regenerative comes, for example, mangroves planting, you're sort of doing a lot more than just planting trees you're planting. When you're planting forests, in countries where you're also producing employment to women who couldn't get employment in a traditional environment, then you're actually making a greater difference, not just environmentally, but socially and giving somebody a better life. So I'm an advocate for offset when you've run out of options, not when not as a default, saying, hey, we'll go and plant X number of trees so that we can go and fly abroad for holiday. And it's I probably have very strong opinions about this. And that's that is very radical, but at the same time, offset really has a place and we we try to offset using Eden reforest to a reforestation scheme, or schemes that are actually really true to what they're trying to do. Hopefully, that that's something that you can edit out if it's true.Gaël  49:47No, I won't. I want it it's perfectly balanced. And I really love the I might even put it in one of the court like I'm an advocate of upsets when you run out of any other smash What's the options? Sorry?Gavin Shinfield  50:04Yeah, I think the the fact of the matter is there's that offsets are unnecessary i There is there is no, there is no net zero plan in the world that doesn't feature some level of offsets. It just depends what type of offsets you're thinking about. And I heard a similar anecdote Vineeta, about cheating on you're cheating on your wife or paying, you know, paying someone not to smoke so that you can continue on continue smoking. It's, the damage is being done, let's face it, you know, you're maybe you're doing good elsewhere, but the damage is still being done. So we have to focus on reduction first, and then offset where where we cannot reduce any further. And that's really what the net zero goal is all about. Reducing the the sbti goal, it's, it's reducing your emissions in real terms by 90%, and then offsetting for the last 10%.Gaël  51:06I love these numbers.Gavin Shinfield  51:09I mean, you know, and you've got and you've got seven yesterday. So let's get cracking. It does depend on on on how you look to do your offsets as well, I'm tree planting is fantastic. We plant trees through through our partner with ecology and have done for a number of years now. But we also do invest in direct air capture with climeworks, the Zurich startup. And there are there are other areas of have more sort of more permanent carbon removal through biochar products, and through some other investment in real carbon positive technologies that we're exploring right now. So I did here on offsets, saying that this really isn't something that that contributes to minimizing your your carbon footprint, it's more of a CSR activity. But that's not to say that you shouldn't do it is still very important. So we as a, as a service based industry, we we were able to offset all of our carbon straight, we offset to three times more carbon than we produce anyway. But then that doesn't stop us from from having a strong carbon reduction and carbon removal plan as well.Gaël  52:36Yeah, fair point. I agree that that's easier. That's easier to do in some sectors. And also, so that definitely shouldn't be a blank check.Gavin Shinfield  52:45Yeah, but then But then as because we this is like anything because we are able to do we are able to do more and have more benefit on on the harm that we that we make, then that we should do we should we should take that opportunity to do all the good we can.Gaël  53:05Well, I think this conversation could go on for a few extra hours, until you've got business to run. So I'd like to ask you a final question, which is a very standard one. We talked about Tom spook team spook the job done at the Greenway foundation by Chris Adams. We should have also mentioned Hanif Miss works in especially in the WordPress community with a lot of other people as well, who has helped bringing the digital sustainability topic on the very top top of the list. But do you have all the resources? Do you have books, podcasts, articles that you would warmly recommend to anyone wanting to either get to know or even you get a bit deeper in the digital sustainability? Knowledge space?Gavin Shinfield  53:58There's a there's a couple that I would I would suggest I know, we've already talked about, like you said Tom's book. Tom also has a wonderful substack newsletter called oxymoron, which is more his more sort of personal musings. And I find that very positive comes out with on a weekly basis. I always look forward to that on a more sort of practical and resource level. Again, we talked about the IS IT handbook of sustainable digital services is that they mentioned previously. Yeah, so that's that's something that I do refer to quite a lot and the the work that was published by the web Almanach recently, the HTTP Archive. They they added a new chapter on web sustainability this year. And I thought that was actually a really good run through of all of the aspects that you You might think about weighing, weighing covering the sustainability online. So those were those are good ones. I also liked them first. Yeah, there, Ronnie. It's talking. He's absolutely his music to my fantastic. Yeah, really good stuff. Did you read his latest one the beyond data transfer? Along with that?Gaël  55:23Yeah, that's a masterpiece. That's one of the best article I read on this topic with the work of Gucci who seems that I should have mentioned in a very sorry to him that he is maybe one of the top Research Leader worldwide, but I know that Tom and Vineeta they know him pretty well as well. Yeah, it was a masterpiece. What for shadow stone. And actually, he was my very first guest on the show. So Oh, was he I must mention back to Yeah. Yeah, my very first guest.Gavin Shinfield  55:52So there we go. Full circle.Vineeta Greenwood  55:54You have really mentioned all of my heroes like Hannah Smith, Chris Adams. And, and got here and it is just all of the people you mentioned, Tim is my absolute fan of Tim Frick. And it's just, it's just really nice to be in this happy bubble where everyone cares, and really is doing the right thing. And I'm so excited. Now I'm connected to Gavin as well. I was just I just so happy. Thank you.Gavin Shinfield  56:24Wonderful. So finally meeting. Yeah, IVineeta Greenwood  56:27know, we should arrange another time to have a chat as well. I'd love to know more about you. And thanks for mentioning oxymoron. That bit that I was gonna say was sustainable web design.org, which is a resource that Tom, my husband, Tim flicks agency, mighty bytes. And also, our digital declutter Toolkit, which is a toolkit to not just talk about website, carbon emissions, but also other digital carbon emissions that we produced with business declares, which is organization that talks to a larger business community on declaring climate emergency. Yeah, and thanks for mentioning oxymoron AI, it's my personal favorite as well. It is quite amazing to watch Tom tossin turn on these thoughts. And then finally, you know, put together a blog post and then sort of cringe Jazziz headings publish, and then then nice people like yourself mentioned it. Thank you.Gavin Shinfield  57:32Well, no, it's just wonderful. You know, what's so good about, about the oxymoron? Thing is, is I think sometimes, and we've talked a lot of some other quite sort of heavy sides of, you know, and the challenges facing us when we're talking about, about being more sustainable about particularly online, but I think there was, there was one episode of The oxymoron it was it really stuck with me. And it's kind of become my, my, my catchphrase, when I'm talking about all of these things, where Tom was talking about the fact that there was perfection and issue. And I think, if we what we what we really must focus on is that there's not to let perfection be the enemy of progress, and really stuck with me. And I think that's a maxim that we should all try and live by when we're thinking about these topics.Vineeta Greenwood  58:28Yes, somebody said, one of our old clients came set to set to me all class or the client from the from the olden days, said, Done is better than perfect. And she would just look at me and go Done is better than perfect. And I'd be like, No, but high quality craft, and she'd like milk, do it, and ship it, and we'll improve it. And I was like, okay, okay, I get, I think that was really helpful to see where we sometimes get stuck, we sort of hang on to things. It's not perfect. I don't want to share it to the world yet. But no, no, it's good. Send that let people critique it, it will get better,Gavin Shinfield  59:06it will get better, and it'll get better through us collaborating on it. And that's how that's how we progress.Gaël  59:13Yes. And it resonates quite a lot with the way I struggle with the podcast. And like always wanting it to be better and perfect. And just I can't just do it. But then we'll come back to this point a bit later. I first wanted to thank you so much, both of you to take the time to join the show to share all this knowledge to be very open about what has worked and didn't work. So it was a real honor to have both of you on the show. Thanks a lot.Gavin Shinfield  59:42Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again, wonderful to meet you have anythingGaël  59:47and I will say the cherry on top of the cake and that's actually the second time it happens. So it validates my new strategy of having rather two or three guests and just one is that once a Again, a nice connection has been made and longer responsible technologists and that really made my day. So I'm happy likewise and, and that's it. I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you will enjoy the next one. Bye bye❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.  📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents.