The word 'disruption' is often used to describe a break in the continuum, evoking that familiar 'wow effect' triggered by something never seen before. What if we're now witnessing the advent of a new kind of disruption?"
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Let's summarize a now well-known situation:
The great climatic stability that lasted throughout the 10,000 years of the Holocene[1] has been disrupted by a single living species: us.
In the space of a few years, we have hacked into the autotrophic/heterotrophic energy exchange and disrupted the carbon cycle[2] by squandering the gigantic energy reserve produced by plants and accumulated over tens of millions of years in the depths of the earth. Access to this surplus of energy gave us an overwhelming evolutionary advantage over the rest of the living world, but now we're caught up in our visible and invisible waste (i.e. greenhouse gases (GHGs)[3], air pollution[4], micro-plastics[5] etc.). Unthought-of, unmanaged consequences of the transformation of this energy into the myriad objects that have invaded our daily lives, all too often just as disposable and non-biodegradable as they are useless, but which we have become completely addicted to, all the more so as they form the basis of our economic systems!
We have now entered the Anthropocene era, with a temperature curve and an extinction of biodiversity that is taking on the appearance of a springboard[6] and will propel humanity into the unknown... at a speed that we may still be able to vary. The laws of physics are quite clear: the height of our fall will depend on this speed.
Digital technology is one of the main drivers of the great acceleration underway.
And what if the great turning point were to take place in the very place where one of the 2 main engines (along with globalization) of the great acceleration underway in our modern societies is to be found today: the Digital Age?
In a way, IT is the ultimate synthesis of all these objects, of human innovation, the perfect illustration of human technological ingenuity as much as its chronic inability to master its effects. One more invention that eludes the human mind, to which it becomes completely addicted. A real drug[7][8] that enables people to escape even further from the constraints of the real world, to be “ out of touch ” with reality, to the point of taking refuge in a world that is sometimes totally virtual.
And yet, if you were born in the 80s, you may have been just as fascinated as I was by the power of this amazing tool that computing represents, and by the sense of freedom that seemed to emanate from it. By this rosy image of tinkerers in their garages revolutionizing the world, promoting knowledge for all and an easier life for all of us. Fueled by the Sci-Fi of the time, the “Tech” engineers succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but they were also the first to sound the alarm about the side effects they had not anticipated:
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Access to knowledge has drowned in an ocean of data, where erroneous information (fake news) is relayed 6 times over[13]. To such an extent that large-scale conspiracy theories are multiplying, and our “filter bubbles[9]” are polarizing our societies and cultures, with everyone believing they hold “the truth”. The inevitable result is a breakdown in social bonds and a weakening of our societies.
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Our good old brains are pretty helpless in the face of the sensory bombardment and extensive exploitation of our cognitive biases by major web platforms, which have become unrivaled specialists in psychological manipulation thanks to the plethora of data provided by our digital avatars. We've become their products, the object of a commercial war to monopolize the smallest interstice of our available brain time with a sophisticated arsenal designed to get us hooked. And they've succeeded: we consult our screens on average no less than 220 times a day (cf. tecmark 2014 study[7]))!
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Lulled by the illusion of paperlessness and virtualization, the IT sector has been even less concerned than other sectors about its environmental impact. This, in conjunction with the explosion in its usage, its data and, consequently, in its equipment, has caused the environmental bill to explode: ~4% of GHG emissions, nearly as much as automobile traffic[10], +40 metals, including rare earths, sprinkled into every one of the billions of pieces of digital equipment purchased every year posing immense environmental and social challenges for both their manufacture and their end-of-life[11]. In fact, these are the places where the bulk of environmental problems are to be found[12].
So, if we are to remain enthusiastic about the tremendous innovations to come from the world of Tech, and promote it as a lever for the ecological transition, perhaps we need to get to grips with its negative effects without further delay.
It's not a question of technical disruption, but of a state of mind, a coming-of-age, a rediscovered ability to take note of past mistakes and measure the real benefits in the longer term. Digital sobriety - a term defined by contrasting with the current inebriation which characterizes the consumption of digital products and services - requires us to reflect on the superfluous, on what is essential, in order to (re)concentrate on what really counts as an individual, as a company, as a society.
And it has the enormous advantage of providing a triple response - environmental, social and economic - to the current situation for companies in particular.
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The Environmental response firstly: because as we've seen, the greatest environmental impact occurs at the manufacturing and end-of-life stages. The 2 main levers are therefore to limit the number of items of equipment required and to extend their lifespan. The exercise consists in questioning the raison d'être of a new digital project, a new infrastructure or a new equipment purchase, in a way other than through a purely financial prism: do we really need it, what is really at stake in the smooth running of my organization, my business, etc.? It's also not uncommon to see equipment/applications gathering dust in IT departments, their decommissioning constantly postponed for fear of “breaking everything”, as no-one knows exactly what they're used for anymore. Beyond this economy of operation on an organization-wide scale, it's also a question of eco-designing digital services to limit their need for material resources and electricity. In both cases, the first essential step is to be able to count on a regular basis, to adopt carbon accounting, which, like financial accounting, enables us to act more effectively and to value our approach in figures and over time.
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Secondly, the social social response: because it is usage that determines the size of the underlying infrastructure, and the number and frequency of equipment replacements. Digital sobriety invites us to limit our uses, and in fact, encourages us to consciously choose the most useful uses, to adopt a “healthy digital diet” in reasonable quantities, to protect ourselves from the excesses of today's digital orgy, which have an influence on our attention span, concentration, productivity, sleep and therefore our health. It's also an invitation to become aware of our filter bubbles and their influence on our perceptions and representations. Not forgetting, of course, the disastrous social conditions in which thousands of people, and sometimes children, work to manufacture or dismantle these screens, TVs, telephones, computers and so on.
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Finally, the economic response: because an approach based on digital sobriety goes hand in hand with financial savings. Not only do these savings make it possible to finance such an initiative, but they are all the greater if the approach is accepted by users, who are more sensitive, for example, to maintaining a workstation in good condition for environmental reasons than for budgetary reasons alone. It is therefore fully compatible with the current economic crisis.
At this point, I think it's important to make it clear that we're not talking about paralyzing doom and gloom, or blaming ourselves or previous generations: “wouldn't any normal person have been taken in by this drug (i.e. fossil fuels), with no one to warn them of its dangers, even though in the short term it gives them a feeling of freedom and a false sense of omnipotence, with none of their senses hinting at the huge debt they'll soon have to pay? It would be just as dishonest to condemn those who are now doing far “worse” than we are, when we have knowingly shifted our pollution to them and for years promoted our lifestyles.
But now that there's no longer a doubt about the urgency of the situation, it's time to emphasize the extent to which it's possible to do things differently, to do things better right now. To show the extent to which the company and “Tech”, 2 figureheads of our modern societies, can seize this subject with vigor and panache to set a new course that makes sense and thus reinforce its image and values, the cement - so precious in these difficult times - of relations with its employees and customers at a time when these are increasingly remote.
Digital sobriety may go so far as to impose a new definition on “Tech” innovations: forbidding them to present themselves as such if they degrade our living conditions on earth in the short or longer term.
Some will say that the digital sector is not the most carbon-intensive. That's true, but why try to set things against each other, especially as this would also be forgetting that not only is it the fastest-growing source of emissions, contrary to the Paris agreements, but it is also the sector that has demonstrated the greatest capacity to transform itself and revolutionize everything it touches. The digital sector, the first to reduce its environmental costs, could lead the way and build on the success of its own transformation to meet the challenges of other sectors. This is all the more true given that reduction opportunities may be easier to find than elsewhere, where the industry has been producing “fat” without realizing it for years. Similarly, the company's intrinsic capacity for automation facilitates the measurement and reduction of its impact, ensuring that its successes are convincing, and all the more visible as IT is used by everyone in the company.
Driven by these convictions, our mission is to offer large IT departments the means to commit to and equip themselves with a digital sobriety approach, to manage their IT differently by adding these environmental and social dimensions.
How can we do this?
By upgrading their central IT service management tool, ServiceNow, with a dedicated application called Aguaro.
Sources :
[ 1 ] Climate History - Wikipedia
[ 2 ] Carbon Cycle - Wikipedia
[ 3 ] Understanding greenhouse gases and their impact on the climate - French Government
[ 4 ] Understanding air pollution and GHGs - Wikipedia
[ 5 ] Understanding microplastics - Wikipedia
[ 6 ] The Great Acceleration - Wikipedia
[ 7 ] Survey on smartphone usage in 2014 - Tecmark
[ 8 ] Key figures on social networks - eWorks (fr)
[ 9 ] Filter bubbles - Wikipedia
[ 10 ] Digital footprint - Wikipedia
[ 11 ] Understanding rare earths and the material balance of electronic equipment - ADEME Infographic (fr)
[ 12 ] Deploying digital sobriety, the complete report of the Shift Project 2020
[ 13 ] MIT study - Fake News - published in ScienceMag
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