Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization
* Book: Robert Rattle, Computing Our Way to Paradise? The Role of Internet and Communication Technologies in Sustainable Consumption and Globalization. 2010. Globalization and the environment series. Berkeley, CA: Altamira Press, 246 pp.,
Review
Jorge L. Zapico:
"The relationship between information and communication technologies and environmental sustainability is complex and still little understood. Will ICT help us move toward a more efficient and sustainable society, or will it increase resource consumption and emissions? Recent books by Bill Tomlinson and Robert Rattle present two opposing answers to these questions. Each details the negative environmental impacts of computers, such as energy consumption, resource depletion, and e-waste, and they both put more weight on the second order effects of using ICT. But while Tomlinson focuses mostly on the positive potential of ICTs for sustainability education and behavioral change, Rattle focuses mostly on the negative effects and rebound effects. A rebound effect (sometimes also referred as Jevon’s paradox) occurs when the increase in efficiency of how a resource is used increases the total use, instead of decreasing it (Alcott, 2005).
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In Computing Our Way to Paradise?, Robert Rattle takes quite the opposite perspective. He argues that the dominant discourse has been based on the assumption of automatic dematerialization and efficiency using ICT, despite scarce, and sometimes negative, evidence. Some of the negative impacts of ICTs are discussed, particularly the direct impacts related to hardware, but also rebound effects. It points out that telecommuting, paperless offices, media consumption, and some of the classic examples of “rebound” effects where the dematerialization expected from applying ICT occurs, have either failed or backfired. A recurring argument in the book, and of major importance in this field, is that the focus on efficiency, usually the keyword when discussing the benefits of ICT for environmental sustainability, is wrong. Rattle argues that efficiency should not be a goal in itself, and that, currently, it just means more growth. Intensity declines, but energy and material use still grow, a classic rebound effect. The author ends the book looking at the positive possibilities of ICT. The focus is in the distributed, decentralized qualities of ICT as a tool for bottom-up change, more based on selforganization. This argument is not so different than Tomlinson’s ideas about collective action or education, but is not as well developed, and it feels like an attempt to balance the mostly negative discourse.
Computing Our Way to Paradise? abuses a bit of demagogic style, with wordings like “ICTs continue to march forward in lockstep with the deliciously attractive pronouncements by technology wizards and media moguls alike” (p. viii) or “perpetually evolving in the savage battle for Internet eyes” (p. 76). This kind of rhetoric makes the book harder to read objectively, and it does not add facts to the discussion. But apart from the form, the message that this book tries to communicate is important: Opportunities offering ICT for sustainability have to be taken with caution; rebound effects may happen, and efficiency does not automatically mean reduction." (http://itidjournal.org/itid/article/view/917/388)
More Information
- Book: Bill Tomlinson, Greening Through IT: Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability. 2010. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 210 pp.,