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. 

In this episode, Gaël Duez went to both Oslo and Paris. Elin Hauge and Heloise Nonne never met before but still they have a lot in common. Same huge experience in AI and Data management … and more important - the very reason you will enjoy having them on the show - same despise for buzzwords and lazy short-cutting thinking. A candid discussion where you can expect metaverse buzz being slashed and rule of three providing more answers than deep learning 😮❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guest and connect: Elin's LinkedInHeloise'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.   Elin's and Heloise’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:Hugging Face’s code carbon tool  https://huggingface.co/bigscience/tr1-13B-codecarbonGreen AI by Roy Schwartz, Jesse Dodge, Noah A. Smith, Oren Etzioni “Communications of the ACM”, December 2020:  https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2020/12/248800-green-ai/fulltext “Data storage & dark data” recent article by Tom Jackson & Ian R. Hodgkinson both from Loughborough University: put a light on the cost of storage : https://theconversation.com/dark-data-is-killing-the-planet-we-need-digital-decarbonisation-190423"Carbontracker: Tracking and Predicting the Carbon Footprint of Training Deep Learning Models" by Lasse F. Wolff Anthony, Benjamin Kanding, Raghavendra Selvan arXiv Crnell UNiversity July 2020 https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.03051 Snowcrash the book where the Metaverse was coined (not by Mr Zuckerberg at all…)Codecarbon.ioGreen I/O mid-season wrap-up articleGerry McGovern's book World Wide WasteThe Data For Good's website and its tool Code Carbon (sources on GitHub)Transcript (IA generated soon to be fine tuned)[00:00:00] Gaël: Hello, everyone. In this episode, I have the pleasure to welcome Elin and Heloïse is known. Elin lives in Oslo, in Héloïse, in Paris than never met before, but still have a lot in common. Same studies in math, physics, in computer science, same huge experience in AI and data management, and more important, the very reason you will enjoy having them on the show.Same despise for buzz words in lazy shot cutting thinking. And of course, both are extremely mindful of environmental issues. However, they went by a different path during the career, which make their vision both complimentary and refreshing. Elin forged her own path as a respected AI strategist, a professional speaker, and a board member.After leading teams in the insurance sector, IT consulting, and many more, always helping deploy data-driven approaches. Without the hype, Héloïse has carved out a own carry pass from the trenches after a PhD in quantum physics, excuse me, sir, she did several jobs in data science, eventually becoming the director of the Data and AI factory at the SNCF, the French Railway Company, which operates 15,000 trains per day and generates just a bit of data.Hello Héloïse. Hello Elin. Nice to have you on the show today.[00:01:14] Héloïse: Hello girl.first of all, What did I miss in your bio? Did I forget to mention anything about you?yes, there is some kind of a change in my career that's coming now because I will quit sncf by the end of the month and start diploma in International Affairs. The idea is to leverage my knowledge of data, data analysis to work on geopolitics of energy and maybe some, relation with defense, in Europe, and supply chain.[00:01:51] Héloïse: How, how can we supply, energy in a separate way in the future? So actually, I have no idea how my future job will be. So the idea is to take a step back, think a bit of what I want to do and what, I want to, how I can leverage my past career to, my new one.[00:02:12] Gaël: But that's awesome. Super interesting. In a breaking news on the Green I/O podcast. Whoa. I'm honored. And please, recruiters don't jump on her on LinkedIn. She's not for hire. Huh? So leave her alone. And what about you, Elin?[00:02:26] Elin: Well, I think you forgot to mention that I have actually also studied organic farming, and I have worked in the agricultural industry as a farmer and I've also set up, a company within organic, food production and distribution.[00:02:42] Gaël: Oh, that's, that's awesome. And how come that you get interested into this, topic or this sector? Actually,[00:02:49] Elin: Oh, well that's kind of an a very non-professional reason because, I was married to a farmer and so I realized that if I'm going to be part of running this farm, I need to understand what this game is about. So unfortunately, or unfortunately or whatever, we're not married anymore. but I still have my interest in organic farming and in food in general,[00:03:17] Gaël: So something very positive you took away from your relationship?[00:03:21] Elin: something at least.[00:03:25] Gaël: Okay, awesome. And maybe, that, that could be connected to my next question, which is how did you become interested in the sustainability?[00:03:31] Elin: Well, I think it very much started with the organic farming and really being a student and having to learn about the soil, for example, and how plants grow and how to have a livestock with a healthy. But then working in the technology industry for several years after that, I'm not sure I really thought that much more about sustainability until about a year ago.I was hired to speak at an event for leaders in the electrical grid industry in Oslo, and before it was my turn on stage, they did a cahoot session. One of the questions. What is the most important action that your company can take towards achieving the UN sustainability goals? And the main answer was digitalization of products and services.And I was listening to this crowd and I was thinking about my own talk that I was going to do a few minutes later, and it struck me that there is a huge mismatch. And that was when I really started to, to re-engineer my approach to AI and the Metaverse and other data driven technologies.[00:04:53] Gaël: Yeah, that's the very reason of this show as well, and that definitely topics that we will discuss a bit later. And, what about you, Héloïse?[00:05:01] Héloïse: Well, for me it was, quite a long process and very slow. cuz I, I remember when I was, a teenager having conversation with my sister about environment and ecology and we were already very concerned. it's a somehow, after this I thought I was having, a sustainable behavior, down, out the lights, not having a car, for instance, and being careful.But, progressively I realized that it was really not enough, on the individual side already. So, Started to really check on every behavior I had. it was in like three years ago, being really, really mindful of everything I would do or not do. And then progressively, it shifted to the behavior in my company.What impact do I have, individually in my job and collectively, in my company, what, what impact my company has. And I, yeah, I grew more and more concerned about the urge to act and to, multiply the action to, to really increase, not just increase, actually change the system, change how we work, and when I realized that the, carbon impact of the digital just overshoots the impacts of the entire, air traffic worldwide, then it truly was,I think a turning point, where I grew more and more concerned about what I was doing. Because when you talk about the cloud, you. Everyone thinks it's kind of, not real and have no notion of an impact.And I was at that time working on that. I was watching TV also individually. And, you know, it's funny, I, I remember my, my father was, an engineer, in the industry for a long time. So he was,a service. So building, bricks and, tails, tiles. And he said at the end of his career, now I'm going, I'm going to try to do something good.Just, just joking because I have been polishing my whole career with,building in this industry because this industry pollutes a lot. It uses a lot of gas to cook, bricks and everything. So he was kind of joking. So he said, now I'm trying to do something very cultic because I've been polluting my old my whole career.And I, at some point that I realized, okay, now we are the new kind of polluting industry. And that was really,yeah, turning points. And I realized that in my team, people were concerned, but not really conscious. That's, that was a problem, but really willing to act and, progressively I started to think, that was more important,to, to take that into account as one of the first criteria in making decision to, to start a project or not to take that into account, be being really mindful of, the potential impact , on the environment.[00:08:26] Gaël: So what we are gonna try to do today is that our listeners will not have to wait retirement time to start having an impact, and talking, about the impact of the digital industry and more specifically, data science and data in general, which are, an area where both of you are experts. I, I have to mention a discussion I had very recently with, pit market Itz. We were discussing about sustainable design, but he mentioned this number that I've didn't hear about before, that when Open AI, released their latest voice recognition system, actually voice recognition net. they gave the number of 680,000 training hours to complete it and to train it.And obviously , the computer network they use was not drawing 70 wards, like my desktop. So it's a fair statement to say that this model training, this model has used a lot of energy. So it seems that data science can impact the planet, but how much does it actually do? S i I believe you, you've got some figures and some information on it.[00:09:34] Elin: Yes. In general, it's a bit hard to find robust numbers here, right? Because first of all, it's difficult to find those numbers or create those numbers. And then secondly, the big suppliers are not really interested in making these numbers known either. But we do know that g T. Which has about 175 billion parameters would require as much electricity as about 130 Northern European households for a year.So I think for the society to really understand the impact that these. Training rounds have, we need to find the equivalence in understandable terms. Kilowatt hours is a bit tricky to understand unless you do the calculations down to what you spend yourself as an individual or on your house.But when we can compare it to the equivalent of households, it becomes much more understandable and one training. Equal to 130 households for a year. That is a lot.[00:10:51] Gaël: indeed.[00:10:52] Elin: then we can, of course, argue that that G PT three is maybe the world's largest neural network, and obviously will require much more energy to power the training rounds than what we maybe would consider normal models in a like a normal business and just an average business in the European market, but still with a bit of a complexity, we could easily get to levels of maybe 10, 20, 30 households for a year in power consumption equivalent. And again, maybe that is not so much if you think about one or two or three of these, and we can say, well, that's okay, but at the same time, we know that the digitalization of businesses and societies all over the world and in Europe has really barely started. There's so much more to do. And then the flip side of that is that when you have all those data and you have all those digital processes, then you need to use those data for something useful, which means that you will apply machine learning algorithms.To at least a huge part of this, to make sense of this data and to use them for automated decision making. But in doing that, we are actually then requiring all this power consumption for the training, and then it's not just a one off, it becomes the expected average attitude. Right.[00:12:30] Gaël: That's quite a lot when you know that the electricity consumption of the entire digital sector is, roughly the same size of, India. So the third largest in the world, electricity consumption, knowing that it might grow even further, that's, that's a bit scary. ELO is, is it something that you studied, in your previous job as well?[00:12:50] Héloïse: Actually not at all. for different reasons. The main reason is that, at, in the industry or in many large companies, whose business is not, build on , images or videos. So companies not like Facebook, Google, or, I don't, Microsoft. The amount of data, is by several other magnitude lower than what they are dealing with for, for instance.Yeah. And what makes,deep learning, very heavy in terms of energy conception and, um, Carbon emission is , the size of, the data sets that they are, using to be, to be trained. And my, my job, at Sncf is very related to the maintenance of infrastructure or during stock or just measuring the mobility , in train or more generally.Mobility. And the amount of data we, we deal with is a lot lower. for instance, the platform that we, the data platform that we manage doesn't store all the data of every data set of sncf, of course, but a lot of it's operational data. We have four something like 400 terabytes of data in all. . So it's not a lot and it's not, homogeneous data.So when we train a model, it's actually working on a very, very small part of, it's something like 300 megabytes or maybe , 100 gigabytes at the most. So actually the training time of our model is not really, the, the part that has the most impact, in terms of energy or carbon emission. It's more how we store the data.So actually we focused a lot more on data management than on really, the, the impact of our algorithm because we are not a lot, we're not doing a lot with, videos and, images. And when people contact me, with use cases using videos. I'm always a bit,mitigated to go further because of course it would be interesting. my team would really , enjoy doing deep learning on, I don't know, videos from trains, but actually I'm not sure. Sometimes there is a simpler and cheaper solution before that we can address before going to deep learning and, and everything. So we actually have not looked so much into the impact of ai, algorithm directly.[00:15:41] Gaël: That is very interesting because what you say is the issue, at least at Sncf, but in many companies are not that much data science, but rather data management. And I think we need to go back to this point a bit later, actually, quite soon later. If I can just pose it for a moment and just go back to data science, electricity consumption when it happens.And I understood that it does not happen in every, company. , maybe Elin, what are the, ,the measures that you can take to reduce it? I don't know. Did did you, do you push for using code carbon I/O or,you know, the hering face,code carbon because it's funny that they've got the same name, but they're two different, stuff.what do you do? Is it, is it about measuring, is it about being wise and, and not using the same models? What would you advise.[00:16:30] Elin: So if you look to like the developer communities, they have for several years, maybe decades, worked on efficient coding, how to run the code. As efficiently as possible, as fast as possible. So there is already a culture among developers to engineer their code in an efficient way, and we need that same awareness and attitude amongst data scientists and data engineer.just to put them in the same bucket for this purpose, as well. So I think it starts with awareness because I think at least many of the data scientists I know they haven't really thought about this. And when they just got a really cool problem, they would just dive into the problem and retrain and redo and explore more data and try again and play around with it and not really focus on what would be the efficient engineering of the modeling. and so that's something that I think is kind of a, a very easy. Stage one. And I've spent a bit of time looking at the green software engineering principles backed by, for example, Accenture and Aard. And I think those basic principles really make a lot of sense. And we don't really, really need to make this complicated, but just add a little bit of a common sense into how we approach development and how we develop model.And all the work with the data and the maths and the code that is required to make this operate, in a good way in everyday business.[00:18:11] Gaël: And, I had a very interesting conversation with Few Alvez de Costa, the, one of the co-founder of Data For Good, he told me that basically, What is still required for data scientists is kind of to switch the approach for being model centric to data centric. So you don't start with, wow, cool.I want to use G PT three because I want to use G PT three, but I check the data set and after that I pick the most accurate model. So do you think that this switch of mindset from model centric, I want to try the latest and shiniest model to being data centric and I will just. Pick whatever most efficient tool I have regarding the data set I need to manipulate.Connecting to what Héloïse just said about that, most of the time you don't have enough data actually to do, deep learning or whatever. do you think that is something that just raising awareness will be enough?no, it's not enough, but it's an important first step, and this reminds me of my forecasting professor at a Warwick Business School like 20 years ago, and she kept hammering in. Make it simple. Make it simple. Make it simple. Do not overfit. And I think within the AI space, it's, it's fun, you know, for the data scientists and I really understand them why we do the same.[00:19:33] Elin: I really dive into the complexities and as you say, the shiny new toys and play around with the really, really cool stuff. However, If we look at the development of ai, like the early stages, they were, scientific. It was about science, it was about academia research. And then over the last maybe decade, it's been more about engineering, at least in everyday business.And we still have the science and more academic approaches like GPT-3, but in everyday. Like Héloïse is also pointing out it's more about engineering or how do we actually apply these tools to our everyday business to solve a business problem or an operational problem. And I think moving ahead, we will again transition into a design perspective of how we apply AI or machine learning to be more pragmatic, in business and society.and then we need to have a, like the approach you mentioned, which tool do we need to solve our problem? We might not need the coolest, fanciest screwdriver. With a diamond tip and a coverage, shaft, right? But we need the tool, the screwdriver that solves the problem we have right there, right then, and that is about choosing the right design for the problem to be solved.[00:21:03] Gaël: And what about you, Héloïse? Was it also your mantra? Make it simple. And did you have some requirement from your teams to use, a shiny screwdriver with a diamond on top of it?[00:21:15] Héloïse: Well, maybe, there was some, yeah, of course I understand this. this will, to try the new tools, but actually, um,I can be quite harsh as a manager and, sometimes when someone says, oh yeah, but we're not doing deep learning, and it's, I thought we would do more machine learning and everything.I say, Okay. this is just a tool. The goal is to solve a problem that's, related to an operational problem. So if you came to my team to, to do the deep learning, you are wrong. Go to, the academia, go, to ask Google or Facebook. Here we are solving maintenance problem and it can be a rule of thumb.And if the rule of thumb is solving the problem, we will just do that, just that maybe with data, of course, and that's why we are necessary. But if a simple mean or median solves a problem for,a correct price, then we'll stop. . and I think, I agree with Elin. It's, it's not enough for the data scientist to, actually, it's not enough to go to a model centric, mindset, to a data centric mindset.I think they have to go all the way to the use case centric mindset. A lot of companies made, this mistake in the past years, it's okay because it's, it was the beginning, but they were just pouring all the possible data and their data lake and then people were asking data saying this quite, what can you do with this data?And a lot of energy was lost in trying to do something, from the data instead of wondering, okay, what's. Are my goal? Should I reduce costs? Should I increase performance? what should I reduce? I dunno, my critical, breakdowns in this type of, of motor, for instance. If you start with this, then you wonder, okay, this is my problem.Which data do I have, in my position? Should I get more or not? And what can I do with what I already have? And then that's, I think, the mistake. Many data scientists think, they think their job is to use algorithm. I think their job is to look at the problem and to make a connection with the data they have at, their disposal.And then make the connection with a model, an approach, a technical approach that can solve the problem. And their job is to make the connection be between these two, business problem, the data and the algorithm. And their mistake is to think that their specialty is on the algorithm and to work a lot on that.I think it's wrong because in most company, the technical mastering of algorithm is not there because we mostly use libraries that are so fine tuned by experts that we cannot do better. We cannot improve what's already well packaged in the library. So tuning the code is not, the job of a data scientist or a data engineer inside a company. It's the job of academic experts, job of people who are releasing these libraries but not the people using them.And I think most data scientists and data engineer and data architect should focus on their core competence to make the connection between operational use of something that's on the market, but they are not going to modify. They're just going to use that them and moreover, I think that data centers should, in, in the recent years, data specialists were specialized on the technology, and I'm convinced that in the future they're going to specialize on specific, business areas.[00:25:35] Gaël: We will have data scientists specialize in energy, specialize in maintenance, specialize in mobility, specialize in marketing, and I think there are going to, there is going to be a more specialization, but towards the business side and not towards the technical side. a very refreshing perspective.[00:25:53] Héloïse: yeah, and so, so focusing on the model is, I think, the wrong idea for most people, except for the few percent of expert who are going to work at Google, Facebook And if I can go back on your question, what could we do to reduce the impact of, AI and data science from a company? Very operational point of view. I think there are, several levers that we can, we can, use first as a company, we can, put pressure on suppliers. We are trying to put more pressure on how they engage, what, what kind of, promise they can really do on, improving the environmental impact of their platforms and the service that they, they provide. Because I think Microsoft, Amazon and Google are more competent to address this problem. Then the companies who are buying the services, but if their, their clients are putting pressure on them, they're going to address it more efficiently or more seriously.So that's the first lever. and. Actually there are going to be a lot more efficient that what I can do in improving , their algorithm and the way they store data. And if they know their clients have concerns about this, they're going to change. But you talked about this in, in, in previous podcasts.And the second thing I concur with, Elin, people writing, code should be aware they have to, be more competent in writing correct code. Actually it should be more emphasized. That's writing more, efficient code means, less costs for, your, IT systems and production.Actually, we, that's what we have been working on, improving codes and improving architecture choice for some projects we divided by five or six, the cost of the project, the cost of the application, the yearly cost. And this actually, I think is the only way to convince, your clients to invest a little bit more money.When you're ,building the app, is when you can actually explain that if they spend 10% more budget, they will reduce by 40% cost in production. And that I, I think it's the only way to convince. because just the carbon impact, okay, they will think it's nice, but in the end, most companies, they have budget.And this is the main constraint. So actually, if you link the carbon impact, would the, Euro or dollar impact, then you win. Otherwise you won't, you won't go very far. and I think developers should have this in mind and they should actually, see this as a competence they can leverage on the market, to be hired and to have a good income.Because if they can prove they can reduce costs and carbon, , then it's fine. otherwise, there are not going to be that much interest in that because it's not very sexy to improve your codes instead of, just training the, the nicest algorithm, and, the newest, library, that Google just released.[00:29:21] Gaël: And Héloïse, when you say you divided by four or five, the cost of some codes that you wrote, could you be a bit more specific and give an example of what did you do? Was it like some kind of a small data smart model, like Martin on Andre route, they like to advocate? Or , how did you manage?[00:29:38] Héloïse: The first thing is to actually question, the use of, IT resources you have. It's, it's very stupid. But, there, there were machines that were not used all the time. And when we just, tuned a little more, a little bit more at what time they were used, how long they were, up and running, that's the most significant gain you, you can have.[00:30:04] Gaël: So greenops[00:30:05] Héloïse: , Actually clean, the number of resources you have, because some of them are up and running and not really being used. This happens, very often, I think in large organization because, of . A governance problem because the teams are large. There are people who just start a machine and, they don't say, or it's not very clear to other people what they do.So actually, this machine is weapon running and we're not sure some, maybe this team is doing something with it and just, just to be sure we will let it up and running. And actually, you, you, you can, you can reduce the cost and your impacts just by cleaning regularly and having a better governance on how you use it.Resources. but I'm sure that's not going to be new to most people in, in companies because, okay. So it's obvious. The, the second thing is architecture choice. And this leads me to a third way to improve it's actually the competence of people you hire. Actually, the, the number of people,in France, or it's the same for in every country.The, the market is so tense that finding people to develop is very hard. And there are companies, who, who actually sell, the service where they sell competence with people, but with teams of 20 people that they're going to put inside the company to make a project. But there is a very large turnover and a very large, a very important pressure ,from the buyers to lower the prices because it's, it's very, very expensive and lowering the prices, for hiring people have two effects. a large turnover. And companies who are sEling services with competencies are going to. Actually choose younger people, so less expert and the choices, the technical choices that are made by these teams, and the turnover, the lack of the commutation. In the end, we have, applications which are not, efficient at all.[00:32:27] Héloïse: And for instance, architecture choices. Just by changing, the type of database that were chosen divided by two, the cost of the project at the end because it was not the appropriate choice because the people who made the choices were not senior enough, were not expert enough, and they, chose the first thing they knew.and it worked. So if it just worked okay, this database is, is the right choice and it's okay. But in the end, when you fine tune, it's very costly because you need experts, and you need to invest time and money, but in the end, you reduce a lot of the impact. So there is a very important problem, and I don't have the solution, in the balance between the number of people you need, but then you're going to have non-expert people and the problem you solve.So you need experts and balance between the two is really not, not easy to deal with, especially for companies who, whose business is not it. So they have to hire, they have to rely on suppliers, but sometimes the suppliers just don't really supply you with real expertise. And for this, all those technical choice, of, type of database you use, the type of, which language you're going to use, there are many mistakes that have an impact in the end on the cost and, what the money, cost and , environmental cost. And the last thing is just tuning the, the code. But I, I would say it's the last 10% that you can gain on your, your impact. [00:34:05] Gaël: however, Elin and Héloïse. if you indulge me, I'd like to play a bit the devil advocates with the first, comment that you made, Elza, cuz you said.That what we can do is mostly to put pressure on our provider and to that, if you take for instance, AWS, they very la copy pasted what they already, said about the security. That the, the, the statement is basically, we are in charge of sustainability of the cloud as they are in charge of the security of the cloud.But you are in charge of sustainability in the cloud. Actually it connects pretty well with what you, what you previously say ELO is when you say that for most companies, it's not really training, models but more the data cleaning the data collection, the data preparation in storing all this data that has the, the biggest environmental footprint. And that is definitely sustainability in the cloud, not sustainability of the cloud. So you think it's, there is a bit of a discrepancy here, saying that it's mostly on providers while still having a lot to do when it comes to data management. Like real data management, like collecting, cleaning, storing,[00:35:21] Héloïse: I think you have to do as a company, you have to do both. really are in charge of how you collect data and how you store it and how long you store it. and for what purpose? So actually have to address these questions and answer them, but you can in addition, put pressure on your provider so that actually they, they proof, to you as a client that they're doing something.I mean, SNCF, axa, edf, or I dunno, large companies, in France or in in Europe or in the US individually don't have, the power to actually put pressure on Microsoft, or Amazon. But if there are a number of these companies actually asking, and actually in the contract that we are writing with these providers, we, we can add this requirements to provide proof of, of, efforts on the environmental impact of their data center. And this is what is done. It's already in the contract. It's already a criteria, that providers have to answer for when they're actually answering a call for information or , on large projects. And actually, I think you have to do both.[00:36:42] Gaël: so it's actually three main, ways of actions. The first one being put pressure on your providers. The second one in B. accurate and astute or be wise about what you collect and how much you need to clean it and store it. And the third one is what you developed with,a better use of, software engineering, green Ops, et cetera, that you bundled around, run cleaner, operations.Would you add something to that? Is it something that you've already noticed that more and more customers, they put some pressure on big providers, or not yet?[00:37:16] Elin: Well, absolutely. As Héloïse points out, there is very often a clause in the contract stating that there's, well, something around the carbon footprint. But, I think. being Norwegian, we are very aware of the need to transition to renewables, and although we are one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world, the electricity we produce in this country is also 90 4% hydropower. and then what we use is a slightly different answer because we're part of the European market, but let's just stick to the production right now which means that Norway is a very interesting country for the data center providers such as also the Netherlands because of they have wind power. ;But switching from fossil to renewable energy to power the data center only solves a part of the problem.And we need to keep in mind that all these large platform provider. One of their main KPIs is consumption of cloud services. So whichever way you turn this around, there is use of electricity that to the main extent of the income of these companies decides whether they're going, whether super margin or just the margin, right?So they always have an incentive to provide as much consumption of services as possible, and I worked in the consulting industry for quite a few years now, and I've heard them saying, for so many years, well just collect all the data. and there has been like this, this belief, this truth, that just collect all the data. Whether you use them or not, or whether you need 'em or not, doesn't really matter.Just collect them. But that is part of the problem, right? Because the amount of data we collect every day is just exponentially growing, and it will continue to exponentially grow because of the transition to digital services and product. So we really need to change this mindset around whether we collect data or not, for which purposes, and how do we actually handle the data we do collect because we know that.a lot of the data collected are never used again or maybe just used once. And there are different numbers around how much data is never used, and it varies from what, 50% to almost 90% of the data collected never used again. It's really hard to find the real number, but the point is that a very large share of the data we collect are never used.And if we are going to use them, there's a huge job in making them usable.[00:40:05] Gaël: So the cleaning part adds even more cost to the planet than just, just collecting this, huge amount of wasteful data .[00:40:13] Elin: Yeah.[00:40:13] Gaël: I think you were referring to both Tom Jackson & Ian R. Hodgkinson,article. The recent one on the Doug data where they started stated that like 50% of the data, was Doug Data and the other numbers come from Jerry Mc Govern.[00:40:26] Elin: Yes, the world wide waste. Mm. [00:40:29] Gaël: It's still a huge consensus that it's above 50%. So that's a lot, definitely.[00:40:34] Héloïse: The good news is actually storing data costs more and more money. And, and one of the reason why I had no difficulties to actually start,a service, in my team, we have a new service in finops. is actually, it costs so much more than before. . like a few years ago, companies thought, okay, the cloud, everything is almost free because it's very cheap.And they started to pour more and more data in their data, like, and now they realize that actually it costs a lot. And the fine tuning of, how much data we collect, how much we store, and how long is, is starting right now because it's cost, it costs too much for most companies. so, so I, I think it's actually good news because back to reality, people start to ruin eyes.They have to be more careful, on what they store. And GDPR has a, a good, impact on that because European companies have to be careful about what they store and, and. Should actually prove there is a purpose that's, legitimate. And I think, I think it's a good thing. the darker side is when we talk about data stored by most companies, it's actually something like five or 10% of the global data that's stored because most of the data stored in clouds and infrastructure comes from videos. And that's, that's actually trusted by large, companies such as Netflix and Facebook and Google , and, and, the more data is stored, the more money they do. So actually the constraint is really not the same. when you, when you talk about some sectors in the industry and, and other sectors. So the solution is not the same. And I think, when, when we talk about the amount of data that is stored worldwide, if we really want to address the real impact, we have to address, the streaming industry and, internet companies and what we can do at our level in the industry such as CS and cf.We have 400 terabyte of data and all. So we are improving that. We are fine tuning, but it's, it's like a drop of, of water in the ocean. It's important to address this drop of water, but the ocean is, Elsewhere.[00:43:06] Gaël: But this drop still cost you money? Because I had another opinion stated by a, an engineer director who told me recently that he really struggled to motivate his engineers because, you know, eventually you drop everything on a S3 bucket, on AWS and even the cost of creating a data pipeline that will at some point store this rather on glacier, et cetera, didn't worth the money.[00:43:30] Héloïse: It's a question of, comparison, between,what's the cost now and what it was a few years back. To give you an example, the storing cost, in, in the platform that we manage, I don't have the number exactly, in my mind, but it went from, I don't know, 20,000 euros, a few years back to 400,000 today, something like that.So it, it multiplied by, a factor 20. So of course, if we reduce that by, I don't know, a half, it's as much money that we can invest on, on new projects or on new, new ideas. So anyway, it's useful to address this and to reduce cost, even if it's not really, really expensive. 400, thousand euros is nothing compared to the global IT budget of A large company like Sncf, [00:44:27] Gaël: the trend is, the trend is warism, so it's better to pay attention to the trend now rather than, you know, it multiplied by 10 every year. And at some point it starts to really weight on the IT budget that that's your message.[00:44:39] Héloïse: Yeah, exactly.[00:44:40] Gaël: And, You know, actually, I, I would love to bounce back on what you said about we need to separate like the streaming industry with other industries.Now that both El and you Héloïse, you're very keen on talking about real use case for real word people. believe that there is a question of who can truly leverage its data and, and which kind of data is truly used in company.And el recently , you made this statement that the metaverse is on, you know, is a buzzword. Everyone talks about it , but most companies they still struggle with, their digital transformation.Would you mind to elaborate a bit with this? Like, very simple but very hard question I, I believe to answer, which is who can truly leverage its data? [00:45:24] Elin: Huh. that is a really good question. Uh, I think, well, just to start my reasoning off with the vision of the meta. [00:45:34] Gaël: Hmm. [00:45:34] Elin: Metaverse. [00:45:36] Gaël: Please shoot [00:45:37] Elin: Yeah. Well, mark Zuckerberg has been given the dubious honor of having coined a term, but he didn't. Right. It was in Neil Stevenson's book, snow Crash, 30 years ago.That's where Metaverse appeared the first time, and now Mark Zuckerberg. Introduced the term again, and then media has to some extent revolved around him for the discussion about what the metaverse is. Reality is that meta is only like a secondary role player in this whole metaverse landscape. I'm not even sure we should call it a metaverse reality is. Virtual reality, augmented reality are technologies that have been on the rise for several years, and really startspotentially creating value for people, solving maybe some new needs, some old needs.A lot of, uh, different use cases that we might discuss in the context of are these actually relevant or needed for our future? But let's just stick to the technology landscape for now So there are so many players in this landscape and so many commercial interests. And I think this really confusesa lot of leaders and decision makers.They think that this metaverse thing is something Zuckerberg came up with. So we don't need to care. But that's not the ,situation and I think we just need to look at our kids. They do gaming for fun, and when they're gaming, they also meet their friends and they chat about life when they're gaming and they get more friends that they never meet, but they meet 'em online,and then they also have their avatars and they buy stuff for their avatars. Currency that is somehow based on blockchain or other tokens. And then we have a whole new economy that our 10, 11, 12, 14 year olds grow up with. And that is changing the landscape a few years ahead. And if you think about which use cases do we not, For this virtual reality plus landscape, and I started making a list and I had to scrap the list and go back to which use cases do I not see in this landscape.That was much easier. I came up with four. First thing is that you need to clean yourself with water that's very physical, so you actually need to do it in the physical world. Then you need to empty your intestines, so you really need to go to the restroom every now and then. You also need to do that in the physical world.Then you need to eat basically because your food or your body needs physical food. Every now and then you. Eat digital pizzas. And then the fourth thing is recreation. I'm not even talking about sex because the sex industry is probably one of the industries that are going to make most money on this. So we're not talking about that.We're basically talking about the reproduction of the human species, those four use cases, all other use cases. I think we can somehow, at least parts of a scenario that is in the digital space. And then coming back to Elise's comment about streaming now, about a year ago, a vice president of Intel said in media that to fuel the metaverse, we would have to multiply the power consumption with about a thousand. So a factor thousand. On consumption. Now that is a lot, that is images, video, and language.[00:49:25] Gaël: But do you believe that most companies and businesses. They will have to start to deal with this huge amount of data, like videos, 3d, et cetera, because the message, I mean, Héloïse's message, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Héloïse was also that it's not the case for the vast majority of businesses today. And we tend to see the word via the lens of, Facebook or Google. But even, even at the, you told me that you didn't have enough data for some maintenance, prediction algorithm, because incident are such a rare event. Fortunately for that, that the amount of data is not enough.So , if I got it right, both of you, it's like today, businesses, they don't deal with such a big amount of data, but in the future, because of the metaverse that might happen, that actually pretty much all of them, they will have to deal with a massive amount of data. Or am I getting something wrong here? [00:50:19] Elin: Well, I would add that there is a very huge spread, so very industrial companies like. Luis talked about, they don't have necessarily that much data and they will still need quite a few years to maybe catch up. if they ever will. on the other hand, we have media companies, for example, or insurance companies and banks that have a lot of data.So there is a huge variety. And I think what is really important isrefuse to discuss these challenging sides because parts of the market doesn't have the challenge.We still need to talk about both the very real perspective of how can companies, get more data like industry like health and med tech they struggle with access to data like ocean technologies where we really need to understand more about the oceans, about, uh, utilities and energy production. but then on the other hand, we have the extreme cases where they have a lot of data and they use it for very advanced purposes, and we need to be able to think. Both those thoughts at the same time, and not all leaders need to do that, but I still think they need to understand that their perspective of the world is not the full perspective of the world.[00:51:47] Gaël: Hmm and other equipped today, there's business leaders.[00:51:51] Elin: No, .that, was a simple answer.[00:51:53] Gaël: a straight answer.[00:51:56] Héloïse: Nope.[00:51:57] Gaël: come on[00:51:58] Héloïse: Actually, I don't even un understand what Metaverse is, and I have no idea. Even if we, we had a unlimited amount of energy , and, I dunno, supplying of, everything, I have no idea what a company, an insurance company, a train company, a plane company, what would they do in this, this thing?and I agree with that in, I think people are not equipped to think about the future,technology such as metaverse for most people, it's just a buzz word, related to the entertainment industry. And I, I don't see something I outside entertainment, [00:52:41] Elin: if I may add, I think it's easier to think of. As virtual reality plus., and then you could probably easily see use cases, for example, in industryrelated to, training of engineers or technicians in the field and inspection of digital twins, even if you are not on site. I think those two would be maybe two of the first examples, and they're not really metaverse. until they are in next generation of an internet where these data flow across entities and across providers. And maybe that's why I say we should perhaps scrap the term metaverse and talk about it as a more next level of internet and how we use data because it is really about a more immersive way of using data where virtual reality and augmented reality plays a significant role.[00:53:39] Héloïse: Yes, I understand. So, so actually metaverse would be to digital twin and virtual reality. What AI is to machine learning and robotics. It's, it's just a higher, word to just. group everything into the same concept.[00:53:58] Elin: Well, I think you can look at it as. internet on steroids where you are not just looking at it and getting feedback, but you become a part of it because you feel like you are part of what happens. Because, for example, you use virtual reality goggles or you have some kind of sensors that are connected to this internet, but the kind of the next generation of. [00:54:26] Héloïse: but on on that aspect, I think there is a kind of fantasy about what companies can acquire, as technology, new technologies because there is a problem of cost can. , for instance, internet of Things, we, we can, say I think it's a kind of mature technology with sensors is something that we can produce, worldwide they are everywhere.A bit too much actually. And even with Internet of things, I was surprised because,, when I started at ncf, seven years ago, they started,to use Internet of things and the, they had the idea that they would have deployed hundreds of thousands of sensors on the network.But actually a few years after that, it's only a few tens of thousands and probably not more. Why? Because it's too expensive to deploy hundreds of thousands of centers on, a network that's, about , 30,000 kilometers wide. It's too expensive in comparisons to what actually, they bring because okay, we can improve, efficiency, measuring for instance, temperature of the rail is important to avoid, problems in, in the summer.but actually we cannot, it's too expensive to put a temperature sensor. Every kilometer on the network. So actually, even the technology is available, it's, it's not, possible to use it, for this purpose. So I have doubts that, even if, steroids, I don't know, digital twins of steroids, could work because actually it would be too expensive for what it's actually brings. and there is this question of what's the risk if I don't invest in. Maybe it costs, a lot less. I have more failures, but it's okay. because you don't always want to have the best product, because, it's too expensive. [00:56:42] Elin: Well, I think you're absolutely right, and this is wherewe need a dose of pragmatism into this whole metaverse discussion. Also because if you look at the hardware cost. Having to invest in better hardware, better screens, monitors, gaming machines, better service, not just in the data centers, but on each and every desk.That is Also, a huge environmental cost,[00:57:12] Elin: is very often not talked about, but it is very.[00:57:16] Héloïse: Yeah, and the cost of energy is also something that will come into the picture very, very quickly.[00:57:24] Gaël: Sorry about that my dear listeners, I don't know where I will cut any of this discussion. I'm enjoying it just too much. I try to keep my episodes below, one hour, But in this case, that's gonna be very difficult, but still being mindful of time and I believe it is highly connected to what you said.I'd like to ask you one last question about this discussion around Metaverse AI in general, et cetera, and once again. I know I quoted it quite a lot, but I really enjoy, the exchange I had with him with c e me that the massive topic, which is completely overlooked in which there is no research today, is the indirect impact of ai.Like over technology, digitalization and acceleration of usages thanks to AI are taking an unsustainable toll on the planet. Actually, when you say this sentence, I immediately connected it to this why question that I often asked to my guest, which is, do we really use AI and do we really use data science for the right stuff are we really using data science for stuff that makes a difference or are we increasing the speed thanks to AI or internet on steroids? To quote you Helen,into the very wrong direction, [00:58:36] Elin: Good question. I think we should just look at AI as a rather advanced tool, but still a tool. but then on a personal level, I'm a medical physicist by education. And well, we basically started. Medical imaging technologies, I see some very obvious use cases, for machine learning in for example, interpreting x-rays And MRIs. and I see some very obvious use cases in food production and in understanding and saving our oceans and also in how we use energy.And then I see some use cases, for example, in retail where I think, well, the world doesn't actually need this. This is a waste. And I think I would like to just close off with Jerry McGowan's perspective. We need to reduce our consumption. and it doesn't really help to use AI to speed up consumption.[00:59:34] Gaël: That's one, one of my favorite authors that you quoted in the very soon, future guest in the show, Héloïse You might have some different views on it or not.[00:59:44] Héloïse: Well, yes. I concur with, with Elin. I think that there is a huge bias on AI in its use because, the people talking,more about AI in the medias or, people who are very, present, in the medias. So, and mosque for instance, is message too much first about what he's doing.Facebook, Google. It makes us forget that actually agree. AI is just a tool. So the question is not, do we use AI for the right thing? The question, you ask is more is this company business something useful or not?And that's what I'm wondering about, metaverse or even streaming is, is it okay to have people, sitting in their apartments watching, tv shows for hours? I mean, I do that. Like I, I also watch TV shows, but at some points we have to wonder. AI is just a tool behind businesses. So is it useful to watch TV for so long?is it useful to, to use trains to use planes? And, and if we ask this question, then the question of, the use of AI is answered as well, because if AI is improving efficiency, reducing cost of those businesses, then it's, and if those businesses are, are thought as useful then AI uses useful.but it's just a tool actually, , we, we don't ask whether or not having a computer is useful. It, it depends on what you use it for. I mean, I've said many times that we don't have a lot of data at cncf, that we don't use lot of, deep learning because we don't have a lot of, videos and images, but I. Used AI for use cases, that are really useful. because I don't know, I have some use cases where machine learning, just helps technicians and engineers, This is useful, but it's not something you will talk on the media because it's simple [01:01:59] Elin: I think, what Louise just said, that many of these use cases, they are not going to create headlines. They're not going to get a lot of tabloid attention, but they're still very useful for our society for some reason, and those are the use cases we really need to work more with and solve and make the world a better place. It is about the problems to be solved. [01:02:23] Gaël: Absolutely. And are you optimistic about our paths, both of you? Will we manage to reach a more sustainable word and actually to increase the digital sustainability in our word[01:02:35] Héloïse: Well being pessimistic is used less so I am not pessimistic, but sometimes, I feel a bit, discouraged by, our behavior, the choice of, companies and the choice of individuals. And one of the reasons why I, I wanted to take a step back and I am quitting my job is, I, I think there is, a lot to do in,explaining where is actually the real problem to. today we are talking in Europe a lot about, reducing our energy consumption. And when I hear people, politics and, companies saying, okay, you have to turn off light. No, no, no. That, that, that is not enough. I'm sorry, but turning off the lights, it is useful, but it's 5% of the afford we have to do.The problem is that people don't have the elders of manager in mind so that the afford is sometimes not towards, the correct direction. It's, it's towards a direction that actually, um, makes, her line. but not on the 80% of, gain we have to focus on. , and I think, I'm, I'm optimistic if a lot of people start yeah, wondering what problem should be solved in a cold, rational way of thinking and not emotional way of thinking.[01:04:07] Gaël: And what about you, Ellin? Will rationality save us?[01:04:10] Elin: it could have if humans were ever able to become rational, Some can, and we all become too rational, we become psychopaths. So well, if we look at the development of the human brain, I'm not so, um, optimistic really about our ability to be rational. maybe we can hope that the majority of humans will actually do what they can to make the right choices to make the world a better place. Right now, maybe I'm a bit more pessimistic than Luis.because I think that right now we are not really proving our ability to, make those choices. But, I hope.[01:04:55] Héloïse: Yeah, I'm optimistic because I think when you actually take the time to explain, people understand and they make the right choices. And actually this podcast is one of the examples I, I've always heard from people saying, okay, if you are a scientist, if you are an expert, keep in mind that you have to explain , this complex concept in three minutes.That's the, that's what people always say in medias. You only have three minutes to convince people of your thesis, but this is wrong. Otherwise, uh, podcast, lasting one hour, two hours, three hours, we have no audience. But it's not the case. People actually want to take the time to understand. And I think, if experts spend more time on medias and spend a lot of energy explaining concept, taking the time.Then people will listen and make the right choices. and I think that's what we should do now is maybe, um,work less on everyday life efficiency and work on,communication a bit more so that people individually and collectively in companies or institutions , will make the right choices.And I'm more optimistic because people actually start to listen a lot. the question is the content of what, what's being said on the media should change and become more rational. I think it's possible. [01:06:25] Elin: So, that's why people like you and me, um, we have work to do. [01:06:29] Héloïse: exactly.[01:06:31] Gaël: And congratulations to the listener who spent, one hour with us trying to understand and deep dive on these topics. that was great to have both of you on the show. I really enjoyed the discussion. I told you, my listeners, that it would be very refreshing with different points of view and a lot of good connection.I will as usual put, all the, the references, in the show notes. any final word, Elin or Héloïse, that you want to share before we close the podcast? [01:06:57] Elin: Well, no, I think, first of all, I just want to say thank you for inviting, and Louise, it was a pleasure to meet you, if I can put it that way. And of course, for listeners, I'll be happy for people to reach out and share their opinions, or questions as well. [01:07:12] Héloïse: And well, same. Really thank you girl for this time together. It was, nice. And I would say, well, if I have a final word,it would be, forget about, over technology of,usages. actually in many cases, the simple, solution is the best, because it's faster to implement.It's simpler to maintain and it costs a lot less. Of course, my team of data scientists are not very happy when I say that, but in the end, they understand and they agree with that. If it works, and if it does the job, then we have to focus on that and okay, it won't make the hand lines, but it will make the business work more efficiently and in the end, that's what we want to do.[01:08:08] Gaël: And I believe that will be the closing word. Don't rush for over personalization. Go for the simplest solution. Thanks a lot to both of you. That was a very cool interview.❤️ 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 to Stockhölm to meet Sören Enholm, TCO Certified CEO 🏷️. For 30 years, TCO has been assessing IT products reaching a whopping 10'000 references today 🤯. We discussed the environmental footprint of digital devices, natural and urban mining, how to secure a qualitative certification process, the current momentum in Digital Sustainability and much more. ❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episodeLearn more about our guest and connect: Sören'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.   Sören's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:TCO Certified websiteDodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (wikipedia)Responsible Minerals InitiativeThe Digital CollageSystExt (mostly in FR)Germanwatch Electronics Watch Green I/O mid-season wrap-up articleTranscript Gael: Hello everyone. In this Green I/O episode, we go to Stockholm. I must admit that during summer it's more enjoyable. In Stockholm, I had the pleasure to meet Sören Enholm the CEO of TCO Certified a world leading sustainability certification for IT products. Why TCO Certified? So far in the show, we had the pleasure to talk about greener Web Dev, greener hosting, greener product management and also how to raise awareness regarding digital sustainability. But I really want to focus more on hardware. As I relentlessly say, when I facilitate Digital Collage workshop, it's the hardware, stupid. And don't get me wrong, I do not insult participants joining a Digital Collage workshop.I just mocked James Careville's famous sentence: "It's the economy, stupid". No harm feelling. So "it's the hardware, stupid" because the equipments we use in digital technology have massive environmental impacts. From embedded carbon, which is often far bigger than the greenhouse gas emitted during the usage phase, toward pollution and resources exhaustion.Hardware should always stay on top of our mind as responsible technologists, and this is why I'm so happy to have Sören with us today. So let's go back to our guest and introduce him properly. After graduating in computer science and linguistics at Upsala University, Sören has embraced a very successful career in business development with various companies like Sun Microsystem, Netscape, Apple. All the way up to executive position when he became VP Europe at Symsoft. But 13 years ago, he made a significant change in his career and joined TCO development as its CEO. Under his tenure, TCO Certified successfully reached the milestone of 10,000 products being certified, and it also managed to join the film industry by participating in the Matrix movie.Welcome, Sören. Thanks a lot for joining Green I/O today. Sören: Thank you very much Gaël. Gael: So what did I miss in your bio? Sören: Well, I think it was, a good, description. I think for of, of my, career. Of course there is, a lot more to why I ended up in, in, in this position. And, I really like to be out in the, in the nature kayaking, mountain biking, or just walking around. and environmental issues has always been on top of my mind.But, I think historically it, it's been too much connected to activism for me. I'm more of an engineering person and, and I guess that's why I ended up in the IT industry after the university. When the opportunity turned up, at, TCO Development, which is the organization behind, TCO Certified that was really a perfect match for me. It's about, IT products. I work in IT industry, my whole career. And it's also about, sustainability, environmental and social sustainability, which is a big, as I said, interest.Gael: Yeah. Got it. So you recently launched the ninth generation of certification. Could you tell us a bit more about it? What does it cover? How do you build a framework to support all of this? Sören: Yes, it's it's been a really long, journey with TCO Certified. The first generation was launched 30 years ago in 1992. At that time we focused on the use phase of the products, to make the products better for the users. Well, better I guess also from an environmental perspective with, with better energy efficiency.But the main thing was ergonomics for the users and, and user safety. Most of the challenges connected to the use phase of the products have been solved during the years, but, now we see more and more challenges in the whole manufacturing phase with the big global complex supply chains of the products and also,when the products can't be used any longer and, and, should be taken back and recycled which doesn't really happen. So, so now the certification is really about both environmental and social, sustainability in the whole life cycle from the mines, all the way to, responsible take back and recycling. And what we have been focusing a lot on for generation nine is to work on criteria that that puts the IT products in a more circular model, life cycle model.Gael: Could you give us example, like one or two examples of criteria that enabled us to achieve a more circular economy, as you say. Sören: Yeah, yeah. Since lots of the footprint, environmental and social footprint is in the manufacturing phase and also at the end of life. Really the, the, the main focus is to keep the products in the use phase as long as possible. We have, created criteria making it easier to maintain the product, to change batteries or other consumables, which, have usually a shorter life cycle than the rest of the product.It should be easier to, to take the product, apart to repair it or to upgrade it also, to enable a second life. And, a third life perhaps of a product. So when the first user can't use it any longer of summaries and maybe another can still use it, but then it has to be prepared for refurbishment as well.Sören: So this kind of criteria we have focused a lot on for generation nine, and we think that is really one of the key areas today.Gael: If I understand it well, for instance, a laptop cannot be certified by TCO if you cannot easily replace the battery. Or do you have some kind of ranking system from something as bad as a sealed battery and something as good as a super easy, with a standard screw way of replacing a battery? Sören: Yeah. Yeah. Preferably, the battery should be replaceable without tools at all. Gael: Fair point Sören: Yeah, exactly. But the requirement we have is that it has to be replaceable with standard tools, you know, standardized tools you can buy in any hardware store.Gael: not something like the one Apple, uses at the moment and offers, for instance, for their smartphones, where you've got specific screwdrivers that you could not find in the regular shop. Sören: No exactly. We, that, that's, we don't allow that. We think that is really bad for repairability and, and for instance, changing the battery.Gael: Well, that's a very interesting line of thought because I would love to hear what you think about the Repairability index that has been pushed both in France and across Europe. Is it aligned with what you're doing at TCO? Do you see any pitfalls at the moment? Sören: No, it's definitely in line with what we do, regarding repairability. And the main challenge , with the, the Repairability index in France is that it's a self declaration. The manufacturers or brands, they create the, index for each product by themselves. And we see that these kind of of systems which are self declared, does not become reliable because all manufacturers and brands are, are not honestin their self declaration.And that's of course also what, TCO Certified is all about. We require independent verification of all criteria in the certification and actually you can use TCO Certified to get independent verification. For the French Repairability index, we have adapted the criteria in TCO Certified, according to the, French repairability index.Gael: That's very interesting, and that's something that you advertise a lot, that you've got more than 20 thousands hours of, work and study, independent study, et cetera. Could you tell us a bit more like what does it concretely means "independent verification". Sören: So, so, really what it means is that an independent verification organization has to, verify every product model that is certified according to the criteria. So the products, the manufacturers or the brands they have to send the product to, an independent, organization to be tested.and of course, not all criteria can be tested. Some, you verify by documentation, but all verification has to be done by independent,persons that are not part of the manufacturer or, or, or the brand.Gael: And how do you choose them? Because I, I believe they're not, they're not employees from TCO Certified. They're subcontractors. Am I right? Sören: Yeah, we, we have a number of approved verifiers that we work with. We have been working with, with, these organizations since the start 30 years ago, so, so we know them very well, but it's typically multinational verification organizations like, Intertech and, T Reinland and Nemco, and they have, labs and, and, verifiers in offices all around the world.And when we started 30 years ago, all the verification was actually done, in Europe, but now when most of the product development, has moved to Asia, also the verification organizations in Asia are used, and not the one in Europe any longer. But, it's the same companies that also have offices around Asia.Sören: And for, for the credibility of the system, these organizations are, accredited with the governmental bodies that verify that they work according to certain standards, but also we have a quality program for them. So, what we do is that we, take a number of IT product ourselves and go around to every lab and we make them, test the product according to our criteria and verify it regarding, documentation.And then we go round to all of them, and we check that they get the same results because if you can get a different result, if you go to another laboratory, then you have a quality problem in the system.Gael: So you cross check the results of the different labs involved. Sören: Yeah, exactly. We do a "round robin", as we call it. So this is a regular thing that we do, every year we have, we have these rounds where we verify that they test and verify products, as they should. And sometimes of course, we also see them, that, that we can be more clear in our guide testing and verification guide.So sometimes this also result in us, updating or making clarifications to, to, to our, verification guide.Gael: Fair enough. And Sören, you mentioned two things that are super keen to my heart when you listed the environmental impacts that you cover in the ninth generation which are both the mining: go all the way up to the supply chain and the management of e-waste. And I'd like us to focus a bit on these two aspects. Starting with the mining. How much do you manage to go upward? Do you work with NGO like, you know, in French, you've got Systex,electronicswatch, worldwide, or you've got also Germanwatch in Germany. How do you assess that the materials, and especially the metals involved in the, elaboration of, the, the devices are the least harmful for the environment. Sören: Yes. That, that's a really good question Gaël. Regarding material choices, that, that is one question of course, per se. And, and we have, a number of criteria connected to substances and especially hazardous substances. Which one are banned you can't use it all and which one are preferred?So we try to steer the industry. We don't only ban, we also try to steer them to the better alternatives. so, so, so, so that is one part of it. When we look at the mines, there are more and more systems created to be able to track where, if you look at the global supply chains, where are the different materials sourced from?And then there are also programs to work with the making, the mines, the production sites. Better both from an environmental and and social perspective. So we require the brand owners to work according to these systems. So we don't, we don't do this tracking ourselves. That would be too complex for us as a small organization. So we always try to build on initiatives that are out there.But of course, we, we always verify the initiatives that they are serious, and that they actually do what they, what they are supposed to and what they say they do.Gael: Could you provide us an example of these initiatives? yes, there are, for instance, it's called "Responsible Mining, Initiative" that is quite focused on the metals especially used in IT products. There are a number of them. I think we have been looking at around 20 of these initiatives, and there are a few of them that we have chosen as, as more serious than the others, and that's what would require then the brands to work with.Gael: Do you see huge differences between manufacturers regarding how they source these precious materials? Sören: Yeah, I, I would say in general we are getting more and more legislation in place. US was first with, with Dodd-Frank Act. that's, what is it? It's almost 10 years now, I think. and,and Europe followed now. So the IT companies that are, Either have their headquarters in, in, US, -we don't truly have any it hardware companies in Europe any longer- but, it's US or,some different Asian countries, and the ones that have, their headquarters or big operations in US, they, they have to, comply to the American laws especially. And, and of course also the European laws. All companies that sell products in Europe have to comply to the European laws.So that's a big push for the, the brand owners to, engage in this. But, the brands that are local to Asia, I would say are not that engaged, because they don't have to. Also, we are not that engaged with them.Gael: Okay, so the push comes from regulatory pressure rather than self consciousness that some mining operations are actually super harmful for the Planet. Sören: Yeah, I, I, I would say that, and, and it's also important to remember that the mines are really, really far from the brands and it is a hard task for the brands even to track the supply chain all the way back to the different mines. So, so, it's important that there are these initiatives and systems being built up, which also the brands can rely on.We can point the brands to these initiatives and the brands can rely on them. I mean with these complex global supply chains, we really have to find systematic ways of working with the, the issues connected to raw materials.Gael: In a previous discussion, you mentioned urban mining as a way to reduce the pressure on the environment. Sourcing materials not from natural resources, but from electronic waste. Is it something that you track or that you incorporate in the TCO Certified framework? Sören: Yeah, we, we require all the brand owners, to have a take back system,for products. and we also try to find different ways to promote urban mining, meaning taking the valuable materials from the electronic waste rather than taking it from the ground. but, this whole area is, is quite tricky. in some countries it's not even possible or legal for the brand to do this because there are governmental monopolies to manage waste. So, so there are lots of old systems and, and regulations that we have to work with together in the society to be able to make urban mining happen big way.I mean, it already happens in a small way, but, but we need it to happen in a big way. And it's kind of ironic that the concentration of these, earth metals, rare earth metals and even gold and copper is a lot, lot bigger in the electronic waste compared to in the ground. But still, we keep on taking it from the ground because we have built up, we have built these huge systems to, to do this in an efficient way when we take it up from the ground, but we haven't done that for urban mining. so we try to find different ways to make this happen, but it is difficult to find ways to do this. and, not only for us, but also for the brands. Since, the complexity is so big and, and the rules and regulations differ from country to country and , yeah, there are lots of hurdles that we need to work on together.Gael: Yeah, I got it. now that we reviewed a bit, the TCO certification, I'd like to ask a very hands on question. As a professional purchaser of IT products, imagine I'm a CFO, CIO, a Secretary General, or anyone in IT procurement. How can TCO Certified help me reduce my environmental footprint? Sören: Yeah, I mean, first it's important to understand that the main thing, as a purchaser, is not to include the criteria. It's, it's really to be able to do the verification that the products, fulfill the criteria. And most purchasers, I would say almost all, they don't have the resources or the competence to be able to do this themselves.So, so just as we use other players, other systems, when we build our, criteria, most purchasers have to do the same thing, when they have include this criteria in, in, in their purchasing. So it's a convenient way for purchasers to include a requirement on TCO Certified. Then we will do the job of creating, the optimal, criteria, for this product that they are purchasing. And we also make sure that there, there is independent, verification, for this product that is, that is purchased. and some of the criteria are really connected directly to the use of the product. we still have criteria on energy efficiency of the product.That is still important, even though maybe the main part, of energy use is in manufacturing phase. and we including, criteria, as I said, for, for user ergonomics, user safety, and, it's an interesting aspect there. For instance, now there is a big, big, focus on energy efficiency of the product.But, uh, if you take a notebook or a computer monitor, the main reason , it uses lots of energy, it's It's bright. So especially a notebook if you're going to use it outside or you know in a café and you have lots of lights and so on. You want it to be bright, but when it's bright, it also consumes more energy and,and, then it can be tempting for the brands and manufacturers to have lower brightness of the display to reduce the, the energy use.But, Then the product maybe will not be that usable and probably the life length of the product will be shorter. So it's really important to find the balances here to, to make the product, as usable as possible to make them have as long product life as possible. But based on that to be, as energy efficient as, as possible.And, I would say a main component as a purchaser as well is that when many purchasers put their pressure behind the same set of criteria, then the industry listens. As a single purchaser, it's quite difficult to, push for, for some of the aspects. You, you may want to, but together with lots of others it is possible.So that's also a big role of, of TCO Certified in this sense.Gael: Yeah. to gather strengths.And, a very related question is: does TCO Certified, allow to incorporate the embedded carbon of the device you acquire? Is it something compulsory now? And if I buy something which is certified by TCO, will I get the embedded carbon to help, you know, my greenhouse gas accounting, obviously.Sören: Yeah, that's a great question, Gaël and this is what lots of purchasers or organizations are, are looking for today. The challenge with this is that the main, factor of your result is what method you use to calculate your embedded carbon footprint. So if you use one tool, and one dataset, you will get one result. And, if you use another tool, and another dataset, you will get another result for the same product. Gael: And will you push for one tool rather than another? Sören: Well, to be honest, we don't think there is any tool or dataset that is good enough yet for, for this. The main problem usually is the dataset. That the dataset is usually not, based on up to date data. It's a long lag of data updates. So, so usually the data is several years old. This is something definitely that we are looking at. We really try to, to, find a good criterion for this in generation nine. But, we didn't, unfortunately. so actually we have a criterion to collect the data, for the products that we certify and what methods, are used.But, we are still trying to figure out how to do this in the best possible way. However, it's still relevant to look at embedded carbon footprint from a product type perspective. So if you have thousands of employees with thousands of workplaces, and maybe now also after the pandemic, you, you have home offices, of course, it's, it's really important to look at, okay, how many, what, what it equipment should we provide? Is it enough with one notebook? And maybe one phone. Or do we have to provide also, monitors both, at the office and at the home office? should we have a notebook or should we have both a desktop and a notebook?This kind of questions you should really ask yourself as a purchaser, a big purchaser. And of course, also, how long do you use the product and could you reuse it? maybe internally. Some of the users have higher,requirements for performance and so on than others. and if you can't use it, yourself any longer, can you leave it away for refurbishment? And it can be used somewhere else, maybe in a school or something like that. Maybe you can also purchase refurbished IT equipment for some of your, users. So these kind of questions, I would say are more, much more important than what is the embedded carbon footprint for a specific product.Gael: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And Sören, I forget to ask you a very important question actually, because a lot of our audience are CTO or CPO or people working more with data center products or network infrastructure products than only laptop or desktop. And do you see a significant difference in the way these products are elaborated, manufactured?Yeah. Do you see a difference, at TCO Certified regarding the quality and the sustainability of these products, or not that much? Sören: Well, it's a big difference between, between the high volume products, like PCs, notebooks, phones, and so on. And the low volume products like servers and, and, and, and storage and routers and so on. Especially if we speak about the big routers you use and, and switches that you use in the data centers.so, so high volume products have a certain set of sustainability challenges, but this low volume product has another set of challenges. So it's not that they don't have any challenges, but they are a little different, I would say. And yeah, we have been focusing, on the office IT products for -what is it?- The first 28 years or something like that, 27 years. So it's only the last couple of years that we have started to look into the data center products as well. And what we see there is that still the main focus is on energy efficiency because for the data center products, actually the energy consumption in the use phase is usually higher than the embedded, energy consumption or embedded carbon footprint.Sören: So, so that's why the focus is usually, but there are still problems also connected to the data center products, other problems, other challenges, and, and that's what we are also addressing with TCO Certified for these product categories.Gael: Definitely, Well, I could go, I could go on with my question asking you to go in depth into this sustainably management system. However, being mindful of time, I would like to ask you. A more general question because when we discussed your appearance in the show, you mentioned that the awareness is still quite low about all the environmental and social problems connected to IT products I'm quoting you.Could you elaborate a bit on it? And more specifically, what are the trends that you witnessed, these past years, and what do you foresee for the future? Sören: Yeah, I, I mean, lots of things have happened in the last five years I would say in general, sustainability has become a, a risk aspect for organizations, and this means that it becomes important for owners for, boards of directors, for management, and they are used to managing risks in their operations.So now when sustainability also has become a risk or categorized as a risk, It's not only driven by individuals that are concerned or have a special interest. It's driven in the regular management system in the organizations, which is extremely important. so, that's a big trend, important trend that is influencing the whole sustainability sector a lot right now. I would say that the sustainability challenge is connected to, for instance, the clothing industry, and yeah, maybe also the furniture and industry, has been quite well known for, for a long time. We have seen reports from, India, Bangladesh, and so on. Horrific reports about, working conditions and accidents and so on.But, I think historically, many people see when they see the IT products, maybe they think about, you know, people in in white, coats, in the factories, doing very high tech work and, and have not maybe understood the problems connected to IT or ICT products. A factory, for IT products looks the same as a factory for almost anything today. Of course some components in the, in the IT products are really high tech and requires,specific facilities. But, putting the products together is just like any factory. And we have the same kind of problem in the factories for IT products as in other factories for more simple, products and in some parts maybe even more problematic because of, in the IT products you use lots of hazardous, substances and so on. I would say that the awareness is rising and it has risen a lot the last couple of years. and, media has helped a lot. I would say that we have seen both news from factories and news from, dump sites of electronic waste and so on around the world, and, and documentaries. and of course, since sustainability is becoming in general a more important topic based on the trends, you look into everything. You look into all product categories and then you start to learn and you start to see.Gael: Thanks a lot for all these insights, and I've got one last question which I asked to all of my guests, and of course you will be no exception to it. What will be your recommendations to learn more about sustainability and in your case, in the ICT industry, I would say? Sören: Yes, that's, that's a really good question. We have lots of information on our website: tcocertified.com.Gael: And I will obviously put the link on the show notes. Sören: Yeah, that's great Gaël. And, and, we are actually working on a, Yeah, we have not really decided what to call it, but, but some kind of, Academy TCO Certified Academy to collect information about where can you find more information, more insights on different topics. In the near future, it will also be possible to find good links there.I hope that your blog Gaël will also be an important channel for everybody to learn more, and that you will also point out the good places, the good sources , to look for more information.Gael: Okay, thanks a lot and well noticed that TCO Certify will soon launch, an academy. I will definitely communicate on it when it will happen. Thanks a lot Sören for, attending the show. It was very interesting to have you because we don't usually go that deep into how we build stuff and the challenges to assess how green and how ethical are the equipment. Thanks a lot for bringing some lights. Sören: Thank you very much Gaël and great speaking to you and I really appreciate that you communicate on this really important topic.❤️ 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 to Chicago to meet a legend: Tim Frick  🧙. The author of “Designing for Sustainability” and a relentless advocate of the B Corp movement told us about being a trailblazer in Digital Sustainability 🌱 for more than a decade. He also took the challenge to answer 10 questions on Sustainable Design in 20 minutes + an 11th “low-ball” one ☑️ . Eventually, we discussed how his company created an “impact business model” because “sustainable design can be a really broad topic” covering all the way to business model and Corporate Digital Responsibility principles and B Corp labellisation 🏷️❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guest and connect: Tim'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.   Tim's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:Tim’s book "Designing for Sustainability" (2016)Tim's TEDx talkMightybytes blog and especially: Article on environmental standards Article on Corporate Digital ResponsibilityThe Corporate Digital Responsibility podcast (and full website) hosted by Rob PriceWholegrain Digital's blog article on page weight budgetMike Gifford’s (Civic Action) article It’s Time for a Global Green Certification for ICTTom Greenwood’s book Sustainable Web Design (2021)James Christie’s SustainableUX newsletter Dr Pete Markiewicz’s virtual LCA framework explained in this Creative Bloq article (2017)The B Corp global website and the great stories listed in B The ChangeThe Green Web FoundationThe tools: EcograderWholegrain Digital’s Website Carbon CalculatorEcopingThe UN Environmental program launched in 2021 the Coalition for Digital Environmental SustainabilityEuropean parliament standardized chargers with USB-CW3C community group on Sustainable Web Design “sustyweb” The 2022 Web Almanac’s chapter on Sustainability by HTTP Archive (2022)Leah Thomas’ book “the Intersectional Environmentalist” (2022) The Sustainable Web Design websiteThe Sustainable UX communityTranscript [00:00:00] Gael: Hello, everyone. As we discussed two weeks ago, design is a crucial step to enable truly sustainable digital products and services. Having the lowest possible carbon intensive electricity powering your hosting is great, but it's even better to have the lowest possible electricity consumption from the start.As the expression goes, a good watt is a nega watt And to achieve this, we need sustainable designers taking into account all the environmental impacts of a product and beyond. for instance, Jim Christie coined the eight Horizons of Sustainable UX, but we'll come back to this point later.In this second episode dedicated to sustainable design, we go to Chicago and meet a legend. And to meet a legend, we need a fairy tale! So, here it is! Once upon a time, there was a designer named Tim who was traveling the unwelcoming land of Mordor Inc. Back in the nineties. It was a narrow minded place where the short term financial bottom line was the only ring of power, finding all web professionals bringing them and in the darkness, binding them, riding his bike, an amazing low tech tool. Much mocked In the olden days, he became a digital sustainability advocate and he experienced the lonelyness of a trailblazer to fight it off. He regrouped with other trailblazers like Pete Markovitz, James Christie or Chris Adams to name just a few in an informal fellowship of the digital sustainability ring.Eventually Tim built his own castle when he founded Mightybytes in 1998, helping mission driven organization amplify their impact. In 2016, he issued a beacon like warning, just like the one in Gondor to rally responsible technologists in the US and beyond. This beacon was a book "designing for sustainability, a guide to building greener digital products and services" published by O'Reilly Media. Excuse me, sir! Is it the end of the story? Not at all, but we will have the chance to hear the following chapters from the hero himself. Welcome Tim. Thanks a lot for joining Green I/O today. [00:02:12] Tim: Thanks so much and that is an awesome and amazing intro. And thank you for, for doing it. I laughed when I read it and it's even better hearing you recite it.[00:02:20] Gael: You're more than welcome. But, what did I miss in my fairy tale actually about you?[00:02:26] Tim: I think that, I mean, obviously I'm 56 years old, so I've had a lot of time. I've been in the digital Space for, you know, since the early nineties. You know, there's probably a lot that was missed, but probably not a lot that's relevant to this conversation. I did just do a climate ride last weekend. you mentioned cycling and I do love to ride my bike and, the ride that I did the Green Fondo in, in, Western New York raised $300,000 for environmental charities in the United States. and so that is one thing that I really like to do. I try to do at least one of those each year. and climate ride is very near and dear to my heart, as are some of the other nonprofits that we work with, like the Alliance for the Great Lakes. really big, big fan of, you know, combining cycling and advocacy, so to speak. [00:03:07] Gael: That's a great mix. [00:03:08] Tim: Yeah, I think so. [00:03:09] Gael: so it seems that sustainability, and you, you go the long way, but how did you become interested in sustainability, at least sustainability of our digital sector in in the first the first place? [00:03:19] Tim: Yeah, sure. I mean, I've, I've always, I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, so I had lots of ample access to nature as a kid. and so I've always really been. You know, an environmentalist in, in my heart and soul. And so when the opportunity to certify as a B Corp my company to certify as a B Corp in 2011 came along, you know, that's not only an environmental, certification.It, it focuses on social and governance issues as well. and so, you know, taking that kind of lifelong passion for nature and conservation in the environment and trying to figure out how to apply that to my business, that's what we did when we certified as a B Corp in 2011.And it was a really eyeopening experience. If you don't know what B Corp certification is, it's a, it's a rigorous certification for businesses to help align your business practices with stakeholder needs and, and stakeholders are defined as community and environment and, customers, workers, you know, all the stakeholders that you kind of think of as a business, you know, that your organization touches on. And so, you know, we're a digital agency. We went through this certification process in 2011. we build digital products and services for clients. So as we went through that process, we started thinking, well, how does this apply? How does the idea of a sustainable, environmentally friendly business apply to the process of digital?And right around the same time, we were starting to read, reports about the massive environmental impact of the internet. and we thought, Well, that's the thing that we build for a living. so what should we do? And so as a company, we kind of put our heads together and came up with, you know, we wrote a sustainable product manifesto.We just really rethank our digital processes, so that we could, you know, kind of put sustainability at the heart of them. and I think we were one of the early companies and early agencies, at least in the digital space to do that. and so, you know, we, we applied that to adding a lot of content to our blog. We started working on how we were reducing our carbon footprint as a company and telling that story via our blog. then we, in 2013, we were launched a free tool called Ecograder, which is still around today, and we actually just gave it redesign last week and these things kind of then in turned into, a TEDx talk. Speaking engagements. I wrote a book as you mentioned, you know, et cetera. So it really kind of just, snowballed essentially, from, you know, thinking about how we could redesign our own practices as a business into helping others do the same.[00:05:35] Gael: And the B Corp certification was the kick starter. [00:05:37] Tim: Yeah, I think, you know, it was, we had gone through a, a different environmental certification prior to becoming a B Corp and it was more like an office certification, so it was about putting in low flush toilets and, LED lighting and and that kind of, stuff. whereas the B Corp certification was much more rigorous and much more kind of, as they say, triple bottom line, you know, where, where you're focusing not just on environmental impact, but also social and economic as well. [00:06:01] Gael: Okay. And Tim, I know it might sound counter intuitive to our listeners, but you haven't talked that much about design these last few years. You focus more and more on promoting the B Corp movement as you just did. As well as the CDR concept. but on the other end, you are still an O'Reilly author in sustainable design and that means something.So I'd like us to split our discussion in two. We will take the time to talk at length about B Corp and CDR. But let's start first with sustainable design. And for this first part to be both efficient and fun, what about a little game? I'd like us to do a quizz together. The idea is to highlight where we are, but also the past we have already covered thanks to more and more technologists behaving responsibly. So I have 10 questions related to your book and the articles you wrote afterwards. And you have two minutes to answer each of them. So be brutally honest. Are you in? [00:06:58] Tim: I'm in. yeah. Well, two minutes. No pressure! [00:07:01] Gael: Not at all. So here we go. For every question, you have two minutes to answer. In chapter three of your book, you describe an almost comic five years journey to find the perfect green Host.A Tale of Green Hosting woe. What about green hosting today? Is it still a struggle?[00:07:20] Tim: Yeah, I think, you know, to answer this in two minutes, I think it is, and the struggle is based on, the fact that the renewable energy sector is rapidly evolving. And so, you know, it's up to all of us to kind of keep up to tabs on what's going on with all of it. As a small company, we wanted to support other small businesses. we wanted to support other bCorps and stuff like that, so we wanted to find a good small green hosting company. turns out that wasn't easy and it took us, as you noted, five, five plus years. We tried a whole bunch of different small, hosting part providers and, and what we found is that, you know, what they had in a commitment to renewable energy, they sometimes lacked in customer service and support and uptime and security.And so we wanted to find a one partner that would really you know, help with all of that stuff. At one point when working with one of those smaller partners, we had. You know, all of our websites that were, we are hosting for clients go down in a single day. And so, like we, imagine having all of your clients calling on a single day saying: "Hey, this is broken and you need to fix it".It was pretty stressful. So, we ended up going with a, a company that housed their solution, atop Google cloud platform. At the time Google was pretty far ahead of other big tech companies in terms of their commitment to renewable energy. and so the partner that we chosed checked all the boxes in terms of renewable energy, but also in terms of security, uptime and customer service and stuff like that. While they weren't the small tiny company that we really initially wanted to work with, it was ultimately the best service for our needs. And so, you know, that was the mid to 2000 2010s. We've been working with them since. but you know, the renewable energy landscape , is much more complicated now than it was back then to get back to your initial question about the struggle [00:08:50] Gael: Yeah. Got it. A fair trade off. Okay. Question number two. In 2016 you stated that CO2 emitted by the internet was mostly from data centers with streaming playing a big role too. What would be your position today? [00:09:02] Tim: We have more information I think. You know, when I was writing Designing for Sustainability, there was very little publicly available research on the topic, at least that I was aware of. I did scour the internet, I scoured research portals and all that kind of stuff to find information.But there was a lot of gaps in the knowledge. You know, I devoted entire, chapter of Designing for Sustainability to how difficult it was to estimate digital emissions from a product like a website. So, I think that, now I would say not just data centers, but also network traffic and consumer and devices and, you know, there's a lot of touchpoints in the entire ecosystem that are all, you know, the internet uses requires electricity to run.And so, there are emissions coming from all of it. Especially since so much of it is still to this day, powered by fossil fuels. Last year we collaborated with Wholegrain Digital, the Green Web Foundation and a few others to kind of review all the academic research on digital carbon calculation so that we could include estimates in Ecograder, but then also to make sure that the estimates, carbon calculation estimates in Ecograder and EcoPing and Website Carbon were all kind of the same, or, very, very similar., because when you get wildly different answers from all of these tools, it sends a pretty confusing message.And so we wanted to make sure that there was parity around that. And so, we took and, made some, assumptions around, like I said, network traffic and data centers and consumer end devices and stuff like that to come up with a general estimation formula for estimating emissions from digital products.Now it's, you know, not meant to be a full replacement for a life cycle assessment. it's not the be-all and end-all resource for digital carbon calculation. We admit this fully when we were putting the methodology together that, you know, we welcome feedback that things are gonna change and, there's probably new resources that are gonna come out that are gonna change this methodology that we put together.But, you know, we did it and, and we put it out there publicly and openly in the hopes to get feedback. And we've already updated it four or five times since you know, putting it out there initially or last late last year. [00:10:56] Gael: Yeah. But that's true that with a big rise in smartphone usages and all these other electronic devices that the share of the electricity being consumed by data centers has actually shrunken compared devices, [00:11:10] Tim: and they're getting more efficient and they're powering their servers with renewable energy. So there's, Yeah. there's a whole, it's like I said earlier, it's a landscape [00:11:16] Gael: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's go for question number three. In the first chapter, you dedicated actually it connects pretty well with what we've just said. In the first chapter, you dedicated some space to internet of things with I would say, mixed feelings, trying to balance between its potential positive impact to decrease wasteful behaviors and the huge negative environmental footprint of all those devices.How would you assess today the potential of iot, for instance, to boost the circular economy? [00:11:44] Tim: Yeah. yeah, I think that that's a really valid question and we should be all thinking about that now. You know everything that we build requires electricity, those of us who are in digital. And so, constantly thinking about how to balance value versus impact on these things is really important. And, and for those of us in the digital sustainability space, it's really easy to get caught up in obsessing over every little performance issue in the name of reducing digital emissions. And while that's really important, it's also not the only thing, you know, if you think about the internet and the greater, bigger picture of the internet, there's a lot of privacy issues, there's a lot accessibility issues.Like all these things kind of go hand in hand with the sustainability issues and stuff. And so we really need to be thinking about all of them. Especially as we look at emerging technologies like AI and blockchain and IoT, et cetera. and so, you know, thinking about how do these things advance sustainable development goals? But then how do we also, as we're advancing those sustainable development goals, how do we also make sure that the impact of these things is positive and, lightweight in terms of emissions and stuff like that.The UN Environment program earlier this year put out a codes action plan, the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability. And they asked for three shifts to happen. One was to kind of create the enabling conditions to align vision, values and objectives in the digital age with sustainable development.Something that we haven't really done a good job at so far, collectively as an industry. The next is to mitigate negative impacts. So, you know, committing to sustainable digitalization. So that's kind of what we're talking about, reducing emissions and reducing the social and environmental impacts of digital technologies.And then the third is to accelerate innovation. And I think this is kind of touches, right? And the main crux of what you're talking about with IoT. Advancing investments in digitalization for sustainability so that we can accelerate, and deploy sustainability driven product services, et cetera.And I think, you know, with all of these things in that codes action plan, it's a really good clear roadmap for how you can use things like IoT to advance the circular economy and stuff. [00:13:38] Gael: Yeah, it makes total sense. The fourth one will be an easier one. To put it mildly AWS didn't have a clean sustainability record in your book. Is it still the case six years later?[00:13:49] Tim: Yeah, I think, it is easy for me because we made an active case not to work with Amazon Web Services. you know, at the time that we were doing that five year journey I mentioned earlier, looking for a good green host, they were not getting good marks at all. In fact, they got not only bad marks for their commitments to renewable energy, but then also bad marks for accountability and transparency and stuff.And so we just walked away from them. We were like, We don't wanna be a part of that. We don't wanna support that kind of behavior in our supply chain. and so, you know, I've heard that AWS has gotten better and that they have made bigger commitments to renewable energy and such, but I, I can't really make any kind of judgment call on that myself because, you know, we haven't, we haven't used them and, and have ever worked with them. [00:14:29] Gael: Which is very wise[00:14:31] Tim: Yeah I think the more important issue here is that companies need to act with transparency and accountability in all of their business operations. So, you know, that wasn't the case AWS, and I don't think it still is. most large multinational companies are in the same boat for that matter, and so we wanna make sure that we're aligning ourselves with organizations who care for accountability, transparency, sustainability, et cetera. [00:14:54] Gael: Okay. Uh, let's go hands on now. You dedicated a significant part to lifecycle assessment in your first chapter, especially the virtual LCA framework created by Pete Markievicz. How many virtual LCA have Mightybytes performed since 2016? And could you provide any feedback on the framework? [00:15:12] Tim: Yeah, I, I'd love to say that we've done a ton of them. And that it's a kind of a core part of our process, but the reality is that most of our clients don't understand what an LCA is, especially one that is for digital. And it's not really on their radar. Like most of our clients don't even understand what a digital footprint is, or, or if they do, they have just a very cursory knowledge of what it is.And so getting them to pay for a service related to this like an LCA which is complicated and takes a lot of time is a challenge. you know, we do what we can to educate them. We have an education impact business model as part of our company, so we dedicate resources to providing and putting educational content out there in the world.But many of our clients, you know, they're either not interested, It's not on their radar. Or if they're smaller, they don't have the resources to invest in something like an LCA. A nd So maybe something an Ecogader tool at least will help them understand, what the issues are and, and what are things that they might be able to do. We did just work with a large university here in the Chicagoland area to help them kind of measure their digital footprint of their core website, they're, larger organizations so that they've got hundreds of individual, departmental and, and school and college based websites and stuff.And so we started the process of, of using one of those websites and saying, Hey, this is the environmental impact or potential environmental impact of that. It's not a full lca, but it is a step in the right direction. And it's, you know, one of the first clients of ours that, that, really expressed an interest in this.They're in the process of undergoing or redesign of their full, of all of their sites of across the university. So for us to be able to do this and say, This is your baseline. Here's where you're at right now, now you need to move forward and, and think about how to improve this. It's a really good and, useful tool for them so that, cuz they have a baseline now.And so that when they're identifying specific tools like a content management system you know, page designs and page weights and stuff like that, they're able to actually say, well this is the baseline of where we're at and we just wanna make sure that we improve from here.[00:17:04] Gael: So it connected to what you've just said about the slow rate of adoptions. Let's talk about standards. In 2016, you advocated for them, despite their slow adoption and with a small number of web professionals you started a World Wide Web Consortium, so W3C, community group It is dedicated to sustainable web design, which I had the pleasure to join last month. What happened this last seven years regarding standards? [00:17:32] Tim: Yeah, actually it's 2013 when we, we started this, so it's even been more than seven years. The Worldwide Web Consortium reached out there's someone I know here in Chicago, that's part of their team and, said, Hey, we're starting these community groups. They're not necessarily. Standards defining groups, but their groups to talk about issues related to what web standards could be.So initially the W3C community group was really about, you know, professionals sharing ideas and sharing resources. And so for many years that community group just was about people sharing links and resources that they had found that may or may change your thinking about, you know, how you're thinking about sustainability for digital.Since the pandemic though, awareness of digital and the environmental impact of digital has really grown, in fact it's kind of exploded since the pandemic, since we're all now chained to our computers every day, all day and working from home and all that kind of stuff we've seen a rise in the membership of this group and, and earlier this year. I mentioned the digital calculation, emissions calculation project that we worked on with Wholegrain Digital and the Green Web Foundation. Once we finished that, we kind of said, Well, now what? And, and one of the things was, Well, we should start thinking about how to supplies to legislation and regulation and standards, you know, the W3C has been, you know, widely renowned for, for their accessibility guidelines that's kind of what they're known for.And so we thought, well, that community group that we started so many years back could actually be a good place to, to be a stepping stone, to actually getting to a place where we have sustainability and environmental standards for the internet. And so, you know, we're just focusing on websites and, and digital products and service. as part of our group, but there's another sustainability group within the W3C. And I, and I do think that there's gonna be a movement towards, you know, getting, actual standards. It's a long way off in the US. I know over in Europe you have a lot more standards around right to repair you know, a bunch of related things. We're still fledgling here in the US, but it's a good step in the right direction. And so, we're pushing forward and, build as much of a coalition in this community group as we can with as many diverse participants and, and perspectives as we can.You know, we can't just make standards based on any one group's, you know, thoughts or ideas. we wanna really create a good diverse sustainable design group that we can in turn use to inform whatever these standards might end up being. [00:19:49] Gael: Cool. And you mentioned regulation, which is fortunate because that was my 7th question. There was no mention of state regulation in your book. And so, you know, in Europe we see quite a lot of momentum being impulsed by the European Parliament as well as some local ones to fight planned obsolescence, to increase product warranty. You mentioned also right to repair even, you know, the, European Parliament standardized chargers with USB-C. So, what do you think about it regulation? Do, do we also need some kind of global green certification for ICT as advocated by Mike Grifford from Civic Action? [00:20:26] Tim: you know, I'm, I'm all for that. I think, it's wild wide west right now. We're really at the kind of bleeding edge of what's going on right now with all of this stuff, and it's very exciting to see a lot of people jumping onto it and, and getting excited about digital sustainability.There's potential for misinformation. there's opportunity for things to go in all, any number of different directions, which is good. But also, you know, if you're talking about getting standards going, there has to be consensus around certain things.And I, and I do believe there should be regulation around these things. Digital sustainability is not on political radar here in the US. we can barely get a clean energy bill passed, which is kind of frustrating, but that being said, you know, data privacy, right to repair that, those things are on the books in several US States, so it is possible we could see similar bills related to renewable energy and specific to digital down the line.you know, we live in the world of big tech here in the United States, and so the big tech companies often spend lots of money lobbying politicians for laws to work in their favor. so it's a complicated scenario. I do think we need regulation, but getting it is not easy task in the United States, at least. As far as certifications go, I think that there should be some, some green certifications. I've been working on a couple of syllabus for digital sustainability class. you know, one of them covers sustainable web design similar to the W3C community group. Another one is more like operationalizing. You mentioned earlier that I don't talk about design that much. I actually do talk about design a lot, but it's really more the, name of organization design than it is specific to digital. So many of these decisions are made by business leaders who don't have the right tools at their disposal. To make good and more sustainable and responsible and ethical decisions when it comes to digital.And so you know, I do think that there's, it's really important to talk to them about the importance of design and, and what that can do for their organization. [00:22:11] Gael: And okay, I'm gonna take a joker here. and let's say this is, question seven B, because what you mentioned about, I'm cheating on with my own rules. That's how bad it is. But you mentioned something very interesting about the fact that in the US some states are pushing for more regulation. And for instance, we can mention New York State, recently passed a bill for the right to repair.But how does it work in the US for the, the non-US listeners? Will it help to have like, let's say, California, Michigan and and New York having already passed some bills to increase digital product warranty, for instance? Or will it create, a bit of a nightmare when it comes to, red tape and regulation and that will stop everything? How do you see it evolve? [00:22:55] Tim: you know, I think it's a good question and it's not a simple answer. I think, there's a certain amount of red tape that comes along with any regulation, whether it's digital specific or not. We have a lot of the politicians in the United States they're woefully behind in their education on digital. and so, You know, helping them understand what some of the issues are, especially some of these emerging issues around the emerging technologies like iot that you mentioned earlier and stuff. You know, that's not on a lot of politicians radar, so helping them understand what it is is gonna help cut down that red tape.in terms of how it works, I've gone and lobbied politicians myself in Washington, DC many times on behalf of climate and, and sustainability and stuff. It's a good and useful process that anyone can go through. And, a, as an American, that is a really rewarding thing to go and actually, you know, talk to politicians and, and hope that your conversation is gonna actually help educate them on some of these issues. But the process a, in a wildly split, democracy like we have, is not easy. As much as you can do on the education side, there's still the process of drafting a bill and getting that bill passed and, kind of the contention that happens in, in the political process here in the United States.So it's a frustrating scenario for sure, especially if you're a citizen of this country. however, you know, as you noted, California, New York, et cetera, have made progress. And some States do make progress on these things. And, you know, when people see that they work and that they actually make change happen, there tends to be that lowers the barrier to entry for other states to consider the same.[00:24:26] Gael: Okay. Thanks a lot for the highlights. Actually, I'm realizing that the next three questions I should have regrouped them with a earlier once, But that's how it is because they're more focused on design and, they're pretty short, like question number eight is about page weight budget You know, you, you talked about page weight budget several time in your book Tom Greenwood, also wrote an article about it a couple of years ago. He mentioned it in his book as well, but on the ground, is it a tool that you use often at Mightybytes?[00:24:56] Tim: I wrote a blog post about page weight budgets back in 2018. And, know, I'm definitely an advocate for them. I think they're, really smart. you know, my understanding or my, experience with talking to clients about them is page weight budgets are fine and all as long as the client can get what they want. You know, there becomes a kind of natural tension there because they're talking about throwing videos and big hero images and all of these elements onto a page. And you're meanwhile saying: "We need to bring this in. We need to pull it back. It's not, the page isn't gonna load fast enough" and stuff like that. So, you know, we typically outline the concept to our clients upfront and say, Hey we really should shoot for this. Our goal is to make every page that we designed for our clients and help our clients understand the importance of performance and keeping page weight down.That doesn't necessarily mean that we are super strict about like, you know, we absolutely cannot go over X amount of kilobytes per page. The HTTP archive does a web almanac every year, and this year, for the first time ever, they included a chapter on sustainability, which is really exciting because that's the first time, a major publication like this is, that talks about the state of how the web is built is including sustainability as part of the game and part of the conversation. That chapter advocates for a a page weight, a targeting, a page weight budget of 500 kilobytes and an absolute maximum of one megabyte per page.and yet, you know, the average webpage is still well over two megabytes. so, you there's a big gap between what we should be doing and what we actually are doing. And so there's a long way to go. but I think that, you there is increased knowledge of this and an increased, kind of awareness of this issue and so, hopefully, there, we're gonna see more improvement over time on all of this. And, in our case, educating our clients around this helps them understand why, no, they can't put this, they need to optimize their images. They can't put this big video on their homepage, et cetera. You know, and on the flip side of that, from an SEO perspective, know, Google prioritizes lengthy, detailed tutorials and how-to articles and search results.And many of our clients, you know, SEO is part of their, their digital marketing goals. And so they wanna make sure that they're ranking really well. And so if you've got Google saying, Hey, your 3,500 word blog post with 10 images in it is gonna perform better than, you know, a small, you know, 1200 word post with two images, you're talking about, you know, your marketing strategy being actually at odds with the climate strategy, if if they have a climate strategy. and so, there's a natural tension there between page weight and performance and also meeting business goals and user needs [00:27:22] Gael: hmm. Fair enough, Fair enough. And let's keep talking about a sustainable design. To which extent would you still emphasize today, how the mobile first approach and progressive enhancements are important? Do you, do you think the battle has been won on these two aspects?[00:27:38] Tim: I, I'm still amazed at how many, digital products and services still don't have a really good, useful mobile user experience, or even just across devices and platforms. it's definitely a better scenario than it was, you know, say 10 years ago or even five years ago. Progress has been made, but there's still, you know, people make poor design choices that really frustrate users and, and they kind of cast their businesses in a bad light. What ultimately happens a lot of times in, in our case and in in an agency smaller than ours project budgets, sometimes forced designers to make choices. You know, they have to choose between multiple mediocre solutions. So in other words, it should never be, you could have accessibility or you could have a mobile optimized experience.It should always be both. However, many client expectations is that their website should have a low cost, and should be turned around in a very short period of time. And sometimes it forces designers and web teams to choose between, you know, bad choices or, take, turning down the work altogether because the budget isn't adequate enough.I mean, I would say when we started turning down work because of budget misalignment that really made a major shift in our agency. But, you know, there's not a lot of agencies that will do that. and, And there's always another agency that's willing to pick up that project for half the price or whatever, and, and then they cut corners and they release a bad solution.And that's how we get the internet being in the place where it's at. Because, you know, designers and developers are the ones building Clients are the ones paying for it. And we ultimately end up with kind of shoddy half paid digital solutions, which is, you know, not optimal. [00:29:06] Gael: hmm. Yeah. Fair point. Fair point. And my last question will be quite the same, but regarding Agile and Lean methodology, because you made quite a case for both of them as a way to avoid waste and promote more sustainable design in your book. Would you still emphasize this point today? Do you believe Agile has won the battle now?[00:29:25] Tim: I'm still a fan. However, I, I say that with a caveat. Agile has definitely, expanded, you know, and, and, many more organizations use it and it's, I believe it's a good approach. It's good for efficiently developing digital products and services, but it also has some serious pitfalls.You know many companies call themselves agile without properly following the principles. They follow this idea of speed to delivery. H owever, oftentimes speed to delivery and sprinting to get to the end leads to ineffectual, poor code that needs to be refactored.And, and, you know, they don't go back and refactor that code. and, so lots of organizations will release something and instead of it being just a draft or just kind of something to test out a concept, it becomes production code. And, that accrues technical debt over time. And ultimately those things become slow.They become bloated. They don't really work very well. They provide a really frustrating user experience, et cetera. And the flip side of that, as an agency owner, it's also really challenging to shoehorn, kind of capital A agile, the very standard agile processes into an agency model.And that's how many digital products and services are built. You know, Companies hire. Agencies to build them, They also want to know right up front how much a project is gonna cost and how long it's gonna take. And that can be at odds with Agile's kind of inherent flexibility.so I, you know, I know there are workarounds for this. Most agencies, myself included, call their process Agile-ish. And they're not as rigorous maybe as they could be. I don't know that a lot of agencies that are really, really super rigorous in the official framework of Capital A Agile without making some, you know, kind of internal concessions. [00:30:58] Gael: Fair point! Tim. Actually, I have an 11th question, and you already touched upon it a bit. this could be seen as a "low ball", but I promise you it's not, It's just that in Europe, it's a bit of a debate at the moment. an interesting debate. not, not a stupid one. And it relates to website carbon calculator. you already talked a bit about Ecograder. in your book you dedicated a full chapter, to this adventure. But what happened is that these last couple of years, several thought leaders in digital sustainability field like David Mytton in the UK or Gauthier Roussilhe in France, for instance, they have raised serious concerns about the flows in their methodology.In full disclosure, this is something that you've mentioned already in your book and that you even started to mention a bit earlier in the show. And I also interviewed, someone quite on the opposite, side. I would say on the other hand, because I recently spoke to James Christie to prepare our interview who told me he stopped caring at all.for two main reasons, which are quoting him word for word, whatever the score is, less bytes is always better. And it is an easy sale because data efficient sites have many other benefits to users in businesses. That was reason number one.Reason number two, I decided to worry less about the calculations and more about what we use the internet for. So you already started to discuss a bit about it, the the need to be open and transparent regarding the methodology. But where do you stand today in this carbon calculated debate? If I could name it that way?[00:32:30] Tim: Sure. You know, we've invested a, a ton of time, money, and energy into upgrading Ecograder in the last couple years. So obviously I think there's some value to it. you know, I, wouldn't be doing that if didn't, if I didn't think there was some value to know, finding it out. however, I I think that there's a really important distinction here.Tools like Ecograder and Website Carbon are meant for people who don't understand this topic really well. I understand the concern that like, oh, you know, if, if I don't understand it, and then suddenly I see my grades get, you know, my website's getting a crappy score. you know, the idea is to educate and inform and hopefully take action. I, I think you're right, the methodologies for Ecograder as well as website carbon has been kind of developed out in the open. You know, we've been very clear about it's not meant to be the be-all, end-all.It is changing over time. as we learn new information, we tweak it and adjust it and stuff like that, and for Ecograder, we want the tool to be as easy to understand and actionable as possible. And so we put a lot of effort into making it educational to making it, something that people can look at and be like, ah, okay. That's an, a, real clear path that I can take to making a difference. you know, it's again, not meant to be a replacement for a full life cycle assessment. but most of the people who use these tools wouldn't have the skills to do a full life cycle assessment anyway. You know, the people who have been doing digital sustainability for a long time probably do, and they probably can do that for their clients. however, someone using Ecograder and seeing, oh, you know, my big website that runs slowly on mobile devices is really causing problems and that there's an actual environmental impact to that. You know, that's a light bulb for a lot of people still here in 2022, and so we wanna make sure that we're, we're creating something that is useful for that group of people.I think, it's completely valid to criticize the methodology and to criticize what's going on. However, that by the same token, climate change is happening now, we don't have the luxury of saying, Okay, let's spend a few years working on this research and making sure that we're getting it right.We can't split hairs over whose data or methods are more accurate. We wanna make sure that, you know, we're moving towards solutions right away. And so from my perspective, anything that helps move us towards that and I include Website Carbon, Ecograder, EcoPing, et cetera, towards that is a good thing.I think a a really good thing. It's, again, not meant to be a replacement for an LCA, but I think that these are education awareness tools to help people better understand some of the issues. And so, to me that's a good thing. [00:34:53] Gael: That's funny because on a different topic, but related, obviously we had this discussion last week with Anne Faubry and Tom Jarrett about a post thorsten Jonas wrote saying " you know, When I enter a room to give a conference on sustainable UX or related topics, I'm always like, Okay. they're gonna get bored. It's obvious they know everything. And at the end of the conference, I'm always stunned by how many people come back to me and say, Well, I've never heard about this before. That's eye-opening. thanks a lot for bringing up that topic, et cetera, et cetera. And he's, he is got a point, he asked the question in the Slack workspace, And I think he's got a point with, we tend, the minute we start paying attention to digital sustainability, to read a lot of stuff, reach out, you know, a lot of people.And we built quite a good level of knowledge pretty fast. But on the other end, it's still completely cryptic for, most of our fellow workers. [00:35:52] Tim: And especially business leaders, which I know is gonna get into section two of our interview, but like business leaders are really, really challenged by this [00:35:59] Gael: Oh, my God, Tim, you are the you are the perfect guest because let's go for, I mean, you, you've done a remarkable job. I didn't want not to talk about sustainable design, but I know this is what you are, that what you are really into today is like sustainable organization, as you mentioned earlier, and also all this involvement around the B Corp and CDRso, you know, quite often I ask my guest a challenging question. You go about the why, the purpose, the question is: "Did you find yourself in situations where making tech greener was not enough, no matter how reduced and offset the scope 3 of your client's operation were, et cetera, et cetera. But let's be honest with you, I don't need to ask you this question.This issue was already mentioned in your book, quoting you here word for word: " mission statement, and core values affect digital sustainability". That's it, period. And it is at the heart of your involvement in the B Corp movement and the CDR. So now the floor is yours. Could you tell us more about it? Do you believe sustainable design is enough to green our digital world? And obviously you mentioned that no, it was not enough. And that's also a question of how business are run. So please let us know what you are into at the moment. [00:37:10] Tim: Sure. Yeah. I think, you know, sustainable design can be a really broad topic. It it can be digital design, it can be print design, it can be organization design. It can mean that, you know, there's a lot of design disciplines that can kind fall under sustainability. And so, I've kind of evolved my thinking a little bit, for a few different reasons. One MightyBytes clients, my company's clients are purpose driven organizations, B Corps, nonprofits, social enterprises, et cetera. They're interested in making a difference but a lot of this stuff is kind of cryptic to them. however, they don't really wanna get into the details of whether or not SVG over css Sprites is, you know, I mean, they don't wanna go down that rabbit hole.They want to know that this rabbit hole is being taken care of, they, they really want to know the high level stuff. And this is actually one of the main reasons we designed Ecograder like we did. You can look at an Ecograder report and very quickly understand, where the issues are related to your website on and sustainability.but you can also drill down and, and figure out all the nuances and stuff the, it's the business leaders that are making the decisions to fund a lot of this stuff. And so the projects are not gonna get off the, ground, if designers aren't on the C-Suite team or if the business leaders don't understand sustainable design. And so, while I say sustainable design is, you know, a great tool to do green in our digital world. It has to be embraced by a much broader group of stakeholders and business leaders are really Mightybytes target market, you know, and organizational leaders, people in, in heading up marketing and communications and that kind of stuff.Those are really who we're trying to talk to. And so, you know, we have to temper the message without getting into the weeds of the kind of technology and the specific design and development tactics, they don't necessarily need to or want to know about that. Um, what they do wanna understand is, is how is this gonna impact my business?What my organization does better? and so because of this, I started focusing, you know, long around, I wanted to say 2017, 2018. A lot of my writing and a lot of our work and presentation work on. More you know, business related things, and business decision related things. and so we, I was approached in 2021 by a bunch of researchers, most of whom were from Europe, on defining, a clear definition of Corporate Digital Responsibility. So, Corporate Social Responsibility has been around since the 1950s. There's been this kind of, you know, push towards creating things like an 18th sustainable development goal with the UN that is specifically focused on digital.Really the idea is that like, how do we create more ethical, responsible, and sustainable digital practices and processes within organizations? While designers can be, you know, lead the charge within an organization on actually implementing those things, it's usually the business leaders that will fund those or say, Yeah, that's the thing that we need to do. And unfortunately, as I said, most organizations don't have a designer in C-Suite, which is really unfortunate. So all that being said, at Mightybytes, we've moved to talking about this in a little bit of a different way.[00:40:05] Gael: Yeah, I just wanted to ask you, how is this, corporate digital responsibility concept being adopted around the world? [00:40:11] Tim: Slowly, you know, similar to digital suspense sustainability, it's probably a few years behind that. You know I think that people are interested, they see the stories about all these kind of unintended consequences that occur from digital products and services. and there are a lot of them are a lot of examples of those. And so people are interested in figuring out a framework that they can apply , to their own organizations. And so, I worked with these researchers and academics and authors in Europe to come up with a definition, which is at the CDR manifesto. and you know, there's seven kind of core CDR principles. It's very similar to kind of a CSR framework, but it's very specific to digital.Again, anybody, any organization can adopt it and implement it. but it's still pretty new to most organizations, I'd say. [00:40:56] Gael: And so the question is, how did you apply it at Mightybytes? [00:41:00] Tim: for us it just, it was about taking what we are already doing, kind of in in environmental , services and applying it to social and and governance as well. As a B Corp, it was easy to do because we were already looking at our stakeholders as dedicated partners whose needs we were trying to work on and meet as we ran our own business.What it meant is we created things like an impact business model. So many companies, they will make money and then they'll, maybe they'll give a free product to a needy community. Or they'll, donate a portion of their proceeds at the end of the year to know, nonprofits and stuff like that Whereas an impact business model, actually allows you and enables you to create impact with the way that you make money. So for us, while sustainable digital design was kind of this thing that we did know, here and there, we made it official and we made policies around sustainability, accessibility, and education.And so we have three impact business models for Mightybytes, where the work that we do, you know, allows us to make money and also creates positive social and environmental impact. and that that's a part of, that's just now built into our business model. [00:42:04] Gael: Okay. and that's something different, than the triple bottom line, the financial, but also environmental and societal. Is it something that is, operated by the CDR or is it something different? Because I know that's CSR that try to create, these, you know, these two missing bottom lines because you, you mentioned like, you know how business are run mostly via financial, bottom line I mean, And we tend now with carbon accounting to have a bit of an environmental bottom line, as well. And for the societal, bottom line, I think we are still chasing it. But is it related or is it something different when you build a impact business model? [00:42:40] Tim: It's all related and I I think that's the most important thing for, for people and organizations to remember is this this stuff is all related. You can have the most carbon efficient website, but if it's promoting tobacco use and it's not paying, and the people who own it not paying a living wage, you know, there's all these kind of related intersectional issues.There's a really amazing book called the Intersectional Environmentalist by Leah Thomas. And I highly advocate for anybody, who's into this stuff to read it because it really talks about how all of these issues are related to one another and how they all impact one another.And so it's not just about carbon accounting, it's about carbon accounting and access to information and, you know, broadband access and all of these other accessibility and these other kind of related topics. All of them need to be considered hand in hand with one another. And that's why I like cdr, framework because it does that. [00:43:31] Gael: We will put the reference in the show notes. Definitely. Well that was really interesting. And did you manage to interact with clients using already the CDR principles or are there still a bit in research phase rather than operational phase? [00:43:45] Tim: We have incorporated some of them in our own , client work and and that kind of thing. There are definitely some research going on. I think there's, a call or a need for really great case studies. know, It's one thing for a small digital agency like Mightybytes, to say, Hey, we're using these principles to operate our business.But, you know, once you get a larger company or many larger companies, you know, creating case studies and, and showing about the actual difference that they're making with this approach, that, that's gonna inspire more people to do the same.[00:44:12] Gael: And really questioning the purpose of what we do. You know, I don't know if I've mentioned it already, but I had a meeting with, Pete Markiewicz to prepare our discussion. That was mindblowing [00:44:23] Tim: Oh cool! He's something else. He's great. [00:44:25] Gael: he's great. Yeah. That was, that was fascinating homeworks that I did both with him and with James Christie. And, I have to tell you a side story he told me. I don't know if you knew that, but he delivers lectures on retro- futuring where he analyzes how in the past we envisioned the future, especially in pop culture. That's crazy because what is striking is that, it is an always energy-intensive and wasteful future that we have tended to foresee, not a circular economy, but like more a "mille feuilles" of all technologies decomposing while being replaced by new ones.You know, like a bit, like in Blade Runner, and thinking about it, it has led me to the question of how much, as responsible technologists, we should question both the purpose of what we do, and this is exactly what both the B Corp movement and the corporate digital responsibility movements are doing.But you know, at some point there is really the question of what being purposeful actually means. That the very question of what is a desirable future! Don't you think? [00:45:28] Tim: Right, And that answer changes for every kind of stakeholder group. I think that's one of the things that I like about the, uh, B Corp movement is that it, it helps you more broadly about the impact of your decisions. you know, if you're, if you're based in a community and ,you make one certain kind of a decision in the name of being purposeful, are there unintended consequences to that?Are you keeping, you know, community based stakeholders in mind? Are you taking your workers into consideration? you know, we live mostly in the B2B space in B2B sales and marketing, oftentimes the idea of paying a living wage is not a thing that's considered or talked about you know, in sales conversations at all.You know, people really, oftentimes when they're hiring services like ours, they just want the lowest you know, that happens in products, consumer product, categories as well. And and ultimately if, you know, someone comes in and can undercut another person, but they're not paying their people living wage, You know, they can talk all the purpose talk that they want, but at the end of the day, they're not really, you know, advancing a good, you know, more sustainable, responsible future, really, I think that question really depends on who you're asking.[00:46:35] Gael: Fair point. Okay. So, being mindful of your time, I know it's uh, still early in the US but you've got a very long day of you. So I think it's time to close the podcast and to thank you for this amazing discussion we had. However, I would love to ask you the two final questions. The first one being what makes you optimistic about our path towards a greener digital world today?[00:47:04] Tim: the the number of people around the world that are regularly getting in touch with me and, and regularly getting excited about sustainable design and sustainable digital sustainability is very exciting really great to see. People from all around the world get excited about this concept. and then go to their day jobs and, and start applying these things on the day to day products that they build and stuff to me, that's very exciting. [00:47:28] Gael: You feel a bit less like a trailblazer now? [00:47:31] Tim: Yes, exactly. [00:47:32] Gael: and I know you already shared tons of references in books, et cetera. Do you have like one final recommendation to learn more about different topics you discussed today? [00:47:43] Tim: Sure. I mean, I'll give a shameless plug to our own blog because Mightybytes writes about this stuff all the time. If you wanna go, uh, find out about corporate digital responsibility, responsability go to corporate digital responsibility.net. Rob Price is based in the UK and he does an amazing job covering this topic from all kinds of different angles. bthechange uh, com, the letter b, the change.com is the storytelling platform for the B Corp community. So if you're really interested in finding out about how other businesses are doing this, digital or otherwise you know, go, and there's just tons and tons of stories about how people are using businesses of course for good. And that's to me really inspiring you know. We created uh, with Wholegrain Digital, we created sustainable web design.org as an open resource for digital sustainability principles. And I think that's probably a good stopping point right there. [00:48:30] Gael: Will put all these resources in the show notes. So thanks a lot, Tim. That was a great conversation. I was a bit intimidated at the first time, I must admit[00:48:39] Tim: you know, you put your your interview subjects at ease and I think that's really important. [00:48:44] Gael: Yeah, thanks a lot for that. That's really what I'm trying to achieve. And of course to have the listeners spend a, an insightful moment, I would say [00:48:52] Tim: Yeah, I hope so. we talked about a, lot of good stuff here and, I hope you know, people can find a little nugget or two out of all of it. [00:48:58] Gael: I'm confident they will. So Tim, thanks a, lot for making this happen. you can always come on the show. You're always welcome. And once again, thanks for joining. [00:49:08] Tim: Appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me.❤️ 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 took a virtual Eurostar between Paris and London and met Anne Faubry, a Board Member of Ethical Designers ⚖️, and Tom Jarrett, a seasoned designer involved in the ClimateActionTech community where he designed its Branch online magazine 📰. Both are recognized thought leaders in the Sustainable Design field because they implement Sustainability from the trenches 👩‍💻. Based on their hands-on experience, we discussed demand-responsive design, Anne's guide to digital eco-design and how designers juggle today between many requirements from accessibility to security and sustainability 🤹.❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!Learn more about our guest and connect: Anne's LinkedInTom's LinkedInTom's TwitterGaël'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.   Anne's and Tom's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:Anne's and Aurélie's guide to digital eco-designBranch Magazine designed by TomCabin, the privacy-first, carbon conscious web analytics designed by NormallyLow Tech Magazine websiteOrganic Basics low carbon websiteThe Digital CollageGoogle's Lighthouse Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) international standard from W3CGood old ISO 27011 Security standard Amélie’s Boucher conference  « Tous sur écran, quels enjeux éthiques ? » (in French - ParisWeb - 2021) Mike Monteiro's talk "How Designers Destroyed the World" (USI - 2015)Climate Action Tech communityGautier Roussihle's blog Satish Kumar's book "Soul, Soil, Society: a New Trinity for our Time" (2013)  Ethics by Design conference (FR) for Sustainable UX"Why web designers need to think about sustainable web design" Forbes 2022 Sept. 1stMore about the French law REEN (Reduce the Environmental Footprint of Digital) with the full text (in FR) and a comprehensive overview in an inCyber's article (2021 Dec. 16th) Transcript (automatically generated)[00:00:00] Gael: Hello, everyone. For this episode, we took a virtual Eurostar connecting London in Paris to meet both and and Tom Jarret, two great thought leaders in the sustainable design field. Actually, we spent the three last episodes talking mostly about infrastructure hosting cloud and how to green them. However, everything starts with design, how we design our digital products and service.In the early stage can have a lot of consequences, both good and bad on the carpet footprint or the impact on plan obsolescence, for instance. So let's meet Anne and Tom to talk about it. Anne is a board member of designer, et ethical designers in English. And a freelance UX design. After graduating from the Leon business school, she joined IBM for several years first as a consultant in digital transformation.And then as a UX designer, after earning a certificate in this field from the prestigious gold de blah, the top design school in Paris, she has worked in the Netlands and in Japan. Quite a busy professional life. Indeed. And I did not even mention her university lecturing. Tom Jared has been a designer for 14 years.He started when using flash was cool. He has worked in both big and small digital agencies. And five years ago he found his foot spots at normally a research and design studio, which experiments a. From working a four day working week to salaries being calculated, banned algorithm, and so on and beyond experimenting.Tom is also involved in the climate action community, starting with designing its branch magazine. Welcome Anne and Tom. Thanks a lot for joining Greeno today. [00:01:39] Anne: Hi gael. [00:01:39] Tom: Hey. [00:01:40] Gael: So, first of all, what did I forget to mention about you? What did I miss in your bio? [00:01:46] Anne: Well, , it's hard to, summarize one or two sentences.I think your bio was great. at the moment. since I'm a freelancer, I've been working on a few projects, so to explain a bit more, what I do in my daily professional life is I advise companies, organizations, in the sustainability. regarding their web practices and as a designer, I can, redesign their, websites or apps.So I mainly focus on. Projects, which have a lot of meaning for me, whether it's to work for a museum, organic farmers, a startup, working with energy savings, the national health administration, or the NGO amnesty international. So it's a very diverse range of clients, which is absolutely fascinating. And so I mainly focus on all these, sustainability.Topics. That's where I'm gonna mention today. [00:02:41] Gael: Wow. That's great. And what about you, [00:02:42] Tom: Tom? So, yeah, I think your, your bio is great in a summary of normally is really good. also normally we have something where we make space and time for internal projects and something we've kind of called an expedition where we try to explore the material properties of data.And that's really led me to having some proper time, like at work and with other people to explore the area of sustainable digital design and try out experiments, like tracking my own digital carbon. Use for weeks worth of internet use. and also where we developed cabin, which is like a more private greener web analytics alternative to Google.Mm. [00:03:18] Gael: And we'll talk about that a bit later. There is a question I love to ask my guests, which is what is your journey in the sustainability field? How did you become interested in the sustainability of a digital sector in the first place? Well, [00:03:31] Anne: that's a good. if I might go first, I've always been interested in the sustainability, I guess, like try to recycle things from an early age.And my family was quite, conscious. my mom loves nature and all, like she knows all the birds and plants and everything. but it's still a big journey to realizing what are the big impacts, for example, taking the airplane or eating meat. And so when I joined IBM, five years ago, it was still, some like high technologies was still something I was extremely interested in and I didn't think.And less growth as something impossible. And I was just really a tech fanatic and thinking that technology could save us all and blockchain was the future. And nowadays I don't think that anymore I became more skeptical regarding high technologies because they are. to consume a lot of energy and resources, and I don't think they're so sustainable anymore.And I think the, I P C C report of 2018 was a big switch for me. I started joining all the demonstrations for, the planet and. That's when I think I realized by learning more where the real impacts were and what was really sustainable or not. And that's when I started to question the clients we had and, how we could make our business more sustainable.And eventually I realized in my opinion, that it could not really be, compatible. What we were doing, working for these huge companies, helping them sell more and more, whether it's luxury companies or banks. And I thought that I had, to quit my job at some point. So I think the biggest parts of the journey is to learn, from scientists and I P C, C and realizing where the real impacts are.And, especially on, in other parts of the world where we don't see the consequences of our actions in Europe, I think was the real eye opening. Moment for me. And that's when, it switched and I still have a lot of, of, the journey is not over there's still lot, a lot to come a lot to do, but that's, there was a tipping point for me, the IPCC reports.[00:05:42] Gael: And you came already a long way on the road. [00:05:45] Anne: Yeah. And in a short time, actually, eventually mm-hmm that gives me hope. when I see myself five years ago, I'm like, oh my God. [00:05:55] Gael: and Tom, what about you? [00:05:56] Tom: So yeah, I've, I've always loved nature and I've always been interested in the environment and protecting the planet as well from a, quite a young age.But I thought like the only way I could make an impact in my day to day job as a designer at a studio, Was to just work with charities or NGOs that focus on protecting the rainforests or water reserves or, and it was only really a few years ago when I read about the actual direct impact of the digital products and services that I was designing and my kind of whole outlook on design changed as I answered as well, you start questioning the idea.Infinite digital growth and technology. And it starts kind of becoming very apparent the glaring gaps in our design processes, and that we weren't, that needed to start considering finite resources, such as energy minerals and water, and really kind of bake that into how we start designing digital products and services.So yeah, it kind of flipped a switch in me and really just changed kind of how I looked at everything I was designing. [00:06:53] Gael: It's fun as this switch being flipped as. Very common story that I hear a lot on this podcast. Like at some point you hear something, you rely something and you just want to align the way you do your job with what you truly believe matters.Like very, very interesting. Thanks both of you for, for sharing this personal journey. And Tom Greeno is about sharing hands on experience on how to make digital technologies more sustainable. As you stated just before I believe you were highly involved in the design of the branch magazine, published by the cat community climate action tech community, actually.This online magazine was designed to be sustainable from the very first bite. Could you tell us a bit [00:07:32] Tom: more about it? Sure. So, yeah, as you say, I'm a member of a slack group for tech workers, interested in climate action called climate action tech or cat for short. And I saw a post one day from Chris Adams and Michelle th.Both of whom are fantastic. And I've admired since I started getting into this topic and they were looking for a designer for a new magazine about a sustainable and just internet for, so I kind of replied to slack thread and sent some of my work and we just started kind of working together on the design of the kind of magazine site.As you say it was kind of like unusual for a project to start thinking about sustainability from the off, you know, it's not normally how, you know, you kind of approach a design project, but it's really how I wanted to start approaching all of my design projects. And we wanted the design of the magazine to kind of reflect the principles of a more sustainable and just internet and also all the amazing articles that were written for it, because like some of the content on the magazine is really amazing and we really wanted the kind of site to reflect.So I worked closely with Michelle and Chris and the rest of the team, and we started brainstorming how we could do it. The idea behind the design was to try and reflect the physical infrastructure of the internet, as well as trying to kind of reduce the energy use of the site at the same time. So I've previously done some work on creating the concept of network responsive design.So the idea that apps can show different designs depending on your network connection. So for example, showing heavier more energy intensive experiences when you're on wifi, but when you're on a mobile network like 4g or 5g, The experience of the design is a lot lighter. This because data sent over mobile networks is much more energy intensives than over wifi wired.And also mobile traffic is just growing and becoming the most common way. We kind of access the internet. So just like how you access the internet matters. It also matters where you access it from. So for branch, we came up with the idea of implementing something that we termed demand, responsive design.So using an API from electricity map, we could tell what the carbon intensity of the grid was in a user's location. And then we could then serve different designs depending on how many fossil fuels were on the grid, in their location. So we had a few different design states in the magazine. The first was if someone was accessing it on a lower carbon intensity grid.So there's a lot of renewables on the grid. and in this scenario we show the user, the full magazine experience with all images and videos loading, and it's just, you know, everything, you know, the site as we wanted it to be. But if the grid is like medium carbon intensity and there's more fossil fuels on the grid, We show a more strip back version of the magazine with dithered low resolution images, which is quite popular in the kind of design of more sustainable websites.And then if the grid is, has a lot of fossil fuels on it at the time it's being accessed, then we, just strip out all the images and videos and use Tex instead. And we kind of crafted the old text to be kind of really nice and descriptive. So you tried to kind of, you know, create an image of what's being shown without having to show.Which is also great for accessibility. And then the user can kind of choose whether to like download the images on ind on individual articles if they want to, but they're not automatically load. And another state that we thought was kind of important to reflect was if the API was down or, you know, if things weren't working we'd, you know, just say, you know, we haven't actually got the information of what the grid is at the moment, because actually, I think it's important to show sometimes that this technology doesn't actually always work.So yeah, we had four different design states that try to kind of, reflect the physical infrastructure of the internet [00:11:12] Gael: and which kind of feedback did you get from the users? [00:11:15] Tom: we got some really great feedback actually. Oh, yeah. A lot of people really loved it. I think we got some feedback initially when we first launched it, that actually it was, people wanted to be able to flip between the different views.So initially it was just, the magazine was displayed on, you know, whatever, if it was low carb and it'd be the full experience, but sometimes people wanted to kind of experience what it would be like. If it was a high carbon intensity grid and see what the site would look like. So we kind of, for the next issue implemented a switch, so you can flick through it.And actually that made the experience much better as well. But yeah, it's, it went down really well, but I think it also went down really well because the, some of the content was really, really good. It helps it definitely helps. Yeah. [00:11:54] Gael: And, and how much does this project resonate with some of yours? Did you experience many projects like this, like sustainable from the very first bite?We. [00:12:05] Anne: Oh, I always say we, because I work a lot with my, partner in crime, already with whom I wrote the, the design analytic guide. On the other hand, it's a lot of debate among us. The work that branch, did I like the things you can see on organic basics website or on the low tech lab website as well to choose to show images or not to adapt to.Consumption of, electricity, because I know that the people behind the branch magazine, like Tom, they're very aware of how it works and there are great designers with the sustainability in mind, and we think it's, great tools to raise awareness of people of indeed, as you say, Tom, to realize that's, for example, when you're on a mobile phone, it's gonna consume more energy than, if you're with a wifi connection or depending on how the electricity is produced, where you live at the moment.On the other hand, I think, we chose not to implement this kind of features on that way. We're on the website we've been working on because we are a bit afraid of the rebounds effect. I think people should understand, and I'm not sure it's always the case that with branch magazine, the highest, like the, the thoughts.First frugal so that like the high end version is already frugal. And then that shows like, what can we remove in the other versions? But many people might think like, okay, so I put everything I want in the, in the high version, because if it's renewable energy, then I can consume more energy. Maybe like non required one, not, not necessary one.And that's, the rebound effect we might be afraid of, that people think that, oh, if the energy is greener, then they can consume more. And actually we need either way, whether it's renewable or not, we really need to decrease our consumption of, overall energy, however it is produced. So I think these kind of, features are great because they're thought provoking.They're great to raise awareness. I wouldn't say it's something to do everywhere. I think it should. yeah, it's great when it's in the right hands and when it's brought to the right way, like, like Tom and, and the others did with Branch magazine, but I think it can be a bit touchy and I think with, Aurélie. We usually think like, It's like with accessibility options, like those add-ons that you could put on your website, like facility it's like, why don't you just make it accessible in the first place? Like, why do you need plugin to make it accessible as an option? Like if it's accessible, it's great for everyone just make it accessible in the first place.And so with the echo design, usually I think it like this, I'm like, let's just do everything sustainable by design and then limit ourselves to what's really necessary, whatever. The way the electricity is produced. And, so we don't use this kind of options. But again, I think that can be really relevant and, and interesting, especially for a media website, like brunch, who, whose goal is to raise awareness.So I think it's, it was relevant in that context. Mm fair [00:15:03] Gael: point. And Tom, this feature, did you manage to deploy it somewhere else? This demand responsive design or even network responsive [00:15:10] Tom: design? Yeah. Good question. to my knowledge, we haven't managed to deploy it anywhere else yet, but the plan was when we get the time to try and open source it.so that. It can be used by other people. and I would love to do that with network responsive design as well, which I guess is obviously a bit more applicable to kind of mobile apps. So yeah, I think the plan was definitely to kind of write a, a, how to post of kind of how to implement it so that people can use it if they want.[00:15:33] Tom: But I totally get, Anne's point, which is very good about like, obviously this was about raising awareness, but the overall aim is probably to reduce energy consumption. And that's, I, I guess that starts with kind of awareness, but I, yeah, I do agree.[00:15:46] Gael: Fair point. Let's go back to Anne, because you mentioned, your partner in crime, or we plan to, to, to speak obviously about the guide to digital liquid design that you released in the early 2020.In May this year, you released a new version with significant updates and actually have three questions. Yes. It's a lot of work being against in your podcast. So question number one, is it available in English? Question number two. Why did you create such a document and question number three? Your chapter number two.Yes, I read it. Your chapter number two is all about assess and measures. So what impact did this guide that had on the designer community? so let's answer to the question in the right order. First, the, the, the guide was available in English. So the first release was actually translated and implemented in English.the second. We haven't done that work yet. So I'm sorry for our English readers, but, and the second version is twice as long as the first, but still the first one is like a 45 page, long PDF equivalent. So you still have a lot of content variable in English and, we will, translate it in like the second we will translate the second, version in English as.[00:16:56] Anne: Coming up. why did we [00:16:58] Gael: we'll make some noise about it? Don't worry. [00:17:01] Anne: thank you. and then the reason why we created such documents, the first reason was actually for ourselves because Al and I, we both had read a few books and documents on the sustainable web design in back in 2000, 19 and 20. And so we started to have our own, guidelines.Both of us in our own, computer. And so we thought maybe we should put them in. And then we thought maybe we should share them online because probably other people are doing the same in their corner. And so if everybody put their guidelines together, then we have already something great to start with.And so we wanted to write an article and thought that the association design analytic ethical designers would be a great place, to, publish it. And they. And then the article became a whole guide. We had so much to say , there was a, there already was so much information available that the, the guide became quite long.And the reason we felt the need to write it was that most of the content regarding sustainable, web and the app design was mainly for developers. It was very technical. sometimes it had implications, and consequences regarding the design, but you really needed to be aware of what it meant and to read between the lines to understand it.So our goal was to make it more understandable. And to show to designers that's most of the leverage we can make regarding the environmental impact is actually in the design phase, so that the, at the early stages of the project, that is what was missing on the web at, at that time. I think this designer point of view.And I think our last differentiator was to make it very, easy to read with a lot of examples. A lot of the French content available at that time was more thorough maybe, but again, really hard to understand what it meant. So we, we show like good examples, bad examples. We try. And we also like share the guidelines in the order of the stages of a project, because sometimes it's just, classified by, by job or by, technical solution that we try to, to, really like sort them out from understanding the client's problem to communicate about your project and to make it more easy to use for designers.Not only designers, but also other users who might be interested. Fair point. Yeah. . And so regarding the assessment and measures, we don't have many measures because we didn't look for them but we know that we have around 3000 people visiting the website each month, which doubled. Between the two releases.So we know that a lot of people come to us towards the association, thanks to the guide. We know that a lot of, companies and organizations share it with their colleagues, share it among the teams. And a lot of people come to us afterwards for advice or for trainings to, you know, further more, how to implement that in their job.So we know it had an impact, and that's how far I can go with. The figures [00:20:18] Gael: well, that, that's pretty impressive. Congratulations to, to both of you, Tom, did you read this guide? [00:20:22] Tom: Yeah, of course. I think it's great. when I kind of talk with designers or give a talk somewhere, Often I get asked for something exactly like this, because like answer a lot of the guides are more technical.maybe some of them aren't so practical, maybe they're kind of geared more towards developers, but people are really looking for kind of practical guides and things with examples and things that are kind of usable in a day to day. And I think this is great for this, so I'm definitely gonna be directing people to it, especially when it's kind of translated fully in English as well.[00:20:55] Tom: Cuz this is exactly the sort of thing. Designers I speak to are looking for. Okay. That's that's very good news. Yeah. [00:21:01] Anne: Great. Thank you. [00:21:04] Gael: So we have more norms, more guides, but do we really make progress in sustainable design? Here is a fun fact. The title of chapter four of the guide to digital co-design is start with mobile first design.As a reminder, this guide was released in 2021 and in 2016, Tim freak wrote exactly the same thing in the chapter five. He's designing for sustainability book B mobile first and adopt progressive enhancement. What do you think about it has sustainability in our digital sector improved these last years.Tom you became a designer 14 years ago, so you can shoot first . I think a hundred percent, it has improved in the last few years. It's become more of a conversation now than it was before, but I think that that was quite a low starting point. So maybe there's still a bit of a way to go in awareness.[00:21:56] Tom: And I think it differs from country to country. So perhaps France is maybe more kind of progressive in the conversations around this and perhaps the UK is, but as you say, I've been designing for a while and I remember being told off by developers. Supplying designs or assets that were too heavy. but now like storage memory, CPU, and bandwidth, all an abundance and cheap.So optimization's kind of gone out the window, but I feel the awareness is, is creeping in, in terms of mobile. I, I agree. It's a good place to start. And through the sustainability lens is also a great place to start. Like I said earlier, you know, reducing energy use saw mobile, because it's more energy intended than wifi.Yeah, I think, I think that is a good place to start. And it's interesting to kind of have the conversations with designers around the awareness. There, it is definitely a bit more of a conversation, but I think there's a, there's a long way to go, especially in, some of the kind of larger companies that have more scale and reach as well.Oh, that's [00:22:44] Gael: interesting because you mentioned the deliver of awareness about sustainable UX designer and that's indeed an issue, which I'd love to have your opinion on both of you and fun fact. Again, last week I read two things. Which send two very opposite signals. Firstly, an article in Forbis, which the title was, why web designers need to think about sustainable web design.Okay, great. Secondly, opposed from a so and Johns, who is, one of the founder of, the sustainable UX community. So big kudo to him and in the slack workspace, he questioned the low avail of awareness. He still experiences. When he gives talks and I'm quoting him here whenever I give a talk about sustainable UX before the talk, I often have the feeling that everybody in the room already must know what I'm about to say.Reality is the total opposite. Every time people approach me say thank you and say, They haven't thought about all of this until now. So my questions would be the following ones. Did sustainable UE become mainstream or is it just greenwashing? How aware are designers around the globe about sustainability?[00:23:54] Tom: I definitely, yeah, I've definitely had that feeling. giving a talk about sustainable design and being surprised about, how few people were kind of aware of a lot of the issues in that area. So for sure. I don't think it's become mainstream mm-hmm yet, and I think it's got a long way to go, perhaps before it does, greenwashing is a tricky one.There's always a risk of that happening anywhere. and it's obviously very prevalent in a lot of, kind of, industries at the moment. I, I do think people are becoming a bit wiser to it. Now, maybe they're not taking companies on face value. You know, there's so many kind of different terms for carbon neutral carbon, zero carbon negative.And I dunno, my hope is that the tactic of greenwashing is kind of short term and ultimately the kind of companies that are actually not trying to make a change or kind of suffer the effects of not doing so. Cause I think people are gonna be looking for. You know, real progressive action and companies that actually take things seriously, rather than just sticking buzzwords and green labels on top of things.So, yeah, that's, that's kind of the direction I think it is going, but I do think we've got a long way to go before it's, before it's mainstream [00:24:57] Gael: and Ann, what's your opinion on it? [00:25:00] Anne: I agree as well. There's a greater disparage between the level of knowledge from one person to another regarding, sustainable.But sometimes when it's a specific conference on that topic, people who come are people who are already interested and aware, and sometimes I have the opposite, reaction people come to me like it was nice, but it was, I wanted to dig deeper. Like I already knew most of it. So fortunately there are both exists.So when I try to. When I give a conference, I try to give a very specific advice and also like more general, overview so that anybody can, get something away from it regarding the, this level of awareness. I think a lot of designers are stuck in agile sprints, as I can, notice. And so they are frustrated because I think sometimes agility doesn't let, design.Take a step back, train themselves, dig deeper, even do some user research. A lot of UX designers are frustrated because they tend to do a lot of UI, but not so much UX. as far as I could, exchange with, them from a lot of different companies. So even in the companies, sometimes we go to training them on this specific topic that like, it's great, but when are we gonna be able to just.Sit down and think more thoroughly on our design language to make it more sustainable. So they, they have a lot of pressure to release very often. And as to said, because the Ben white is so big nowadays, they don't think so much, about optimization. The, the final thing I wanted to say regarding greenwashing was that.Indeed, more and more companies are aware of that and, tend to, to pay attention, not to, to get any backfire on their communication. However, I think that a lot of them do greenwashing without meaning to, because they don't know where the real impact are. So when we talk about, sustainable web design, They mainly focus on the energy consumption or worse, the electricity consumption, which is not an environmental indicator, because depending on how the electricity is produced, it can be very viable.So then only look at the, at how much energy is consumed while navigating the website. And that's not how, it should be, considered because 75% of the impacts of the digital industry is actually in the hard. That's required to run, these websites and apps. So the main goal of echo design is to make, the hardware last longer.So we don't need to, to change so often our smartphones, especially, and computers because, they tend to, to be too slow to, to charge anything and to download a new app. So. I think a lot of companies really focus only on that. And then they don't realize they don't question, their hosting supplier or they don't question how often they might change their computers.Then it becomes greenwashing. If they start to communicate on this, on the, the energy use to run their website only without considering the whole, digital strategy, then it's greenwashing. And I don't realize that. So. Sometimes. Yeah. Greenwashing is, is not always on purpose yeah. It's [00:28:06] Gael: because they didn't do a digital collage and otherwise they would have read the very same car that the one as you've described regarding the three quarter of the environmental footprint being beared by a.Hardware rather than electricity consumption, as you said, but that's, indeed, but yeah, still a long, still a long way to go, but I'd like to bounce back on something you mentioned regarding both of you, the bandwidth, and it connects me with the norms and guides that we now have in the word of web design.So we have w three C standards, like obvious with the accessibility guide, the defacto standard for web performance, with Google lighthouse, old fashioned, but still relevant security standard. And now we have also to take sustainability into consideration. So my point is, while designers are constrained a lot in very short time sprint and they even struggle to do UX, as you rightfully mentioned, that's a complaint that I heard a lot.Has it become too complicated for designers to deal with all [00:29:06] Tom: those imperatives? Yeah. I don't think it's become too complicated. I think we to start embedding it within education for designers, which is why I think. You know, lecturing and working with students is important. I think that's kind of where it needs to start, but even designers now, it, it's not too much to think about at all.It's just, we need to create the time within the process to be able to think about it. And we need to repurpose our current design processes. And move them away from being focused on optimizing for business and growth objectives, moving away from being all about getting more clicks, more attention, more conversions, and we just need to allow designers to kind of reflect and consider the environment and make it an integral part of.How we think about digital products and services, because at the moment it's in it, isn't in our processes at all. And I think that, I think that's what the problem is. I don't think it's too much to put them in there either. And accessibility should be the integral part of that as well. [00:29:59] Anne: The other day I was giving a training on eco design to, in a company.And one guy came to me at the end. He was maybe 40 or 45 and he told. You know, when I hear about the guidelines of echo design, I just, I just, it just seems to me that I'm hearing my developer classes from 15 years ago on how to optimize, images and the code. And, and as Tom said earlier it before, like before the Ben whites were so big, we, we could, we really needed.To make all these optimizations and nowadays we don't even, try to most of the times. So for me, it's not complicated in the sense that it's just going back to the basics. A lot of the, of the advice given is just like going to the real need of the user, serving it and no more. And it's just making good UX and, And making quality, web performance websites.And I think UX got, really out of its real purpose by serving as, to said, more, Attention purposes and clicks and conversion rates. And sometimes at the expense of a worse experience for the user, because we ha we are a bit, harassed, when we navigate websites. So eventually it's, it is a constraint, but constraints can make us more creative and it creates also a virtual circle because a lot of the guidelines, for echo design as the same ones as with accessibility, The respect of the attention of the users, the respect of its, privacy and also the, the good, guidelines for perform.And then SEO and actually a lot of those recommendations go towards the same direction eventually, meaning that it's not so complicated because it's not like adding up, it's a group of guidelines, which are really consistent between all of them. Yeah. Which can also enhance creativity. [00:31:56] Gael: is it what you referred as a virtuous cycle concept?Somehow? I, I heard you talk about it. Yeah, [00:32:03] Anne: exactly. Few weeks ago, because if you make a, if you make a website, more sustainable, if I can say so then it's more accessible and if it's more accessible, then it's more performance because, for example, Google will, enhance. More accessible websites in his, in its SEO.And it will, also be more respectful of people. Attention. The great example of that is autoplay videos. It's bad for the environment. It's bad for the attention of the user. It can be bad for the experience. It's bad for accessibility. It's bad for SEO because it's gonna make it very heavy and not accessible.So, if you remove another play video, you're gonna really increase the performance in all those fields. That's [00:32:43] Gael: very interesting because in green IO, we focus almost solely on the environmental impact of digital technologies and we keep our focus on it, but it doesn't mean that the other aspects are not important.Also, and sustainably obviously covers much more with, people and profit coming with planet life. We mentioned the three P for instance, there is a lot of discussion about ethics, which you rightfully mentioned. I could mention Mike Montero's work in the us or Emily share works. in France. I wanted to ask you both of you.If you had to pick one message beyond being green, when it comes to sustainable UX, what [00:33:22] Tom: would it. I think for me, it would be to make sure that the internet is a public resource. It needs to be open and accessible to everyone all over the world. I think one of the main things we need to talk about more focus on is somehow moving it away from the kind of privatization of this infrastructure.And it kind of being held in the hands of three or four giant corporations, because I think that's a lot of the challenges we face is not having, you know, we don't have access to. A lot of the data that's needed on energy use and all, a lot of the infrastructure. So I think aside from the sustainability, it's deeply embedded within it, but there's big kind of questions around accessibility for everyone.And also the kind of growing privatization of the infrastructure that we pretty much all rely [00:34:05] Anne: on for me, I would say, I like to quote Satish Kuma, who's, an Indian, activist regarding environment and the social issues. He said something. And I think I really agree that you cannot take care of the planet without taking care of the people.Like if our goal is to make the world more sustainable, we. Gonna need to take everyone on board and to think about development and prosperity. And it's not gonna, like many people cannot afford to be as environmentally responsible than others. So we need to, to take everyone on board. And so it means making accessible website, of course, but also it means to think about all the people working in their mind.Extracting all the resources we need to run our computers and the, and networks and the world doesn't have an, an endless, amount of supplies and resources. So we should use them wisely because it's gonna be more and more complicated and expensive. Take them out of the earth and to transform them into digital device.So that would be maybe I'm, I'm cheating a bit. That would be my two points. with the need to take care of the people and the need to, to use more wisely, the resources we have at [00:35:14] Gael: hand. And if we take these two pieces of advice that you shared, both using more wisely, a very limited stock of, resources and maintaining the internet as an open system.If you take that into consideration, did you find some time? In situation where you had to question the why, the very purpose of, your buyin for instance. And my, my question is, did you find yourself in situations where making design more sustainable was not enough, no matter how reduced enough said the got three of your clients' operation were and how beautiful the communication is at some points, does the why challenges with you as.[00:35:56] Anne: I have a, a great, privilege of being able to choose my clients. So I only work for projects in which they believe in for which I think there's a, there's a lot of, meaning and, and I think it's a, it's relevant for them to, to use resources because of their purpose. However, sometimes I still feel that it can, clash, especially within companies I give trainings in.So then they have the choice to implement or not the guidelines I give, usually when it clashes it's with the business model, especially when it's, publicity oriented. So like with the social media, usually people, when I give them all the guidelines are like, yeah, but then. What about like Facebook or Instagram?Like that's, that's the business model here, or even in splash.com and I'm like, yeah, that's, that's my point. Like the most sustainable you want to, you want to become the more you need to rethink your business model. Like it can get really deep. And so with, the publicity based business models and the eCommerce, which is a lot about, increasing the average, basket.Of a client and the, and the amount of a product, he purchases then it's U it usually clashes with the, with the guidelines. And I think it doesn't clash if you look long term, but the, the issue is that most people in these companies have short term goals and objectives. And so they need like, it's Christmas.They need to sell that much. And to make that percentage of growth. And it clashes with the, maybe the long term goals of the company regarding sustainability and brand image, because sometimes they're gonna harass the clients with a lot of publicity. And, whereas if the website was really comfortable and, maybe clients would come more that's long term strategy compared to short term strategy.And that's when it clashes the most, from what I can, observe. [00:37:50] Gael: Now that the very definition of sustainability. And what about you, Tom? Did you experience such kind of a clash? [00:37:57] Tom: Yeah. I mean, obviously there's always gonna be clashes and contradictions and I guess part of working for the studio when you're working with clients is a as a way of trying to kind of balance that.I agree with what I said. Well, a lot of it is it's short term thinking over long term, that is a kind of large part of the problem. Yeah. It's impossible not to ask yourself questions when seeing some of the kind. Startups and projects that kind of go on in the, in the kind of tech space, you know, does the world need a internet connected salt shaker?And you know, why are so many talented designers working on a tool to serve more digital ads? But I think, I dunno, I feel like the way you're gonna kind of make the most impact is. By working with big clients and big companies and trying to kind of, you know, be part of the solution, you know, rather than standing on the kind of preface looking in.but yeah, it's always gonna be a bit of a balance and a bit of a contradiction. Yes, [00:38:49] Gael: indeed. And be mindful of time. I'd like to ask you the two final questions to both of you. Obviously the first one being what makes you optimistic today regarding our past toward a greener digital. [00:39:01] Anne: what makes me optimistic might be the realization that the European governments are starting to tackle the issue, whether it's at the European union level or the French government, which is not the most, environmental friendly government, we can have.But even this government, it, it passed a law last year regarding the reduction of, the environmental footprint of the digital, business, sector. So if the government, sets the trend, whether it's in inside administration, as it does already, or whether it's, by passing laws, I think things can change, on a wider level than, what it had until now where only individuals acted on this topic.So that makes me hopeful. And especially because now the, the subject is brought towards the, the European union and the European union did some great things regarding the production of, of data and privacy of the users. So I think it can really do interesting things regarding, sustainability of the digital sector.[00:40:00] Tom: I think there's loads of good reasons to be optimistic about the path to designing more sustainable digital products and services. the good news is there's so much low hanging fruit, so much wasteful redundancy built into our internet infrastructure, and we can make a massive difference by simply trying.Because at the moment, we're not even doing that. We're not trying. And I feel like we can make huge gains by doing that. And also, as I said before, if we can educate younger designers about their issues, then we'll really start to see the kind of awareness increase and influence the kind of design of digital products we use every day.And that's the main reason I think I'm optimistic. Cause whenever I do lecturer workshops with young people, they really care about sustainability and they really wanna make sure that the work they're doing in the future has a positive. So I think that's, that's one of the main reasons to be optimistic for me [00:40:45] Gael: and to help actually there's young generation, I'd like to ask my final question, which is what will be your recommendations to learn more about sustainable design.[00:40:54] Tom: I'd recommend anyone interested, joins the climate action tech slack community. there's so there's so many amazing people on that channel working in that space. And I just find so many good articles and conversations happening there. there's separate channels for design and other disciplines as well as kind of different locations.And it's just a really great pace to kind of meet like-minded people working in the same area rather than kind of working or thinking about it in silo. So I think it's just much better kind of working with other people. So, yeah, I'd, I'd recommend anyone interested, joins that really? Because I [00:41:24] Gael: I've never mentioned this community ever.[00:41:28] Tom: well, yeah, it's a for me, most of my resources are in French, but, there's one which is available in English, which I, which I really love. It's the blog of, good. So we can, add, this, this, URL, his hyperlink in the description of the podcast, but, he's a French researcher, from a design background, but now he's more of a researcher.Around the, the environmental impacts of the digital industry. He did his PhD in England, so he wrote lots of his papers in English, and they're really accessible though, highly technical. And he has this great over, view of the whole, production chain and where the impacts are. He's a specialist in 5g in semiconductors.[00:42:09] Anne: In, fuller life cycle analyzes. So I think it's great to read, his papers to get a better overview on what the rebounds effects are or what the impacts, on the, the mining industry are. Yeah, very accessible. All free. available online in English. Yes. [00:42:27] Gael: Is a very strong voice in the digital sustainability field.And we need more like him. Thanks a lot for sharing all of this. That's not a non material that you've shared, but that's always good to remember it. and that was very insightful feedback that you and, and experiences that you shared. I really enjoyed the discussion between the two of. So I would like to thank you again for joining the show.That was really, really great to have you here today. So thanks a [00:42:55] Anne: lot. Thank you, Gail. Thank you, [00:42:57] Gael: Tom. Yeah. Thank you. And for our next episode, we will go to Chicago to meet a legend. Someone mentioned several time in the show, Tim Frick, and I'm sure our discussion will bring new perspective to the one we had with Anne and Tom today.❤️ 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.