Digitisation = climate protection?

Cloud Computing, 3D-Printing, Big Data, Industry 4.0: The world of work and life is changing drastically due to digitisation. How does this affect climate protection? This is the topic of CliDiTrans, a new project of the Borderstep Institute.

Some studies are calculating the potential for reducing global CO2 emissions through ICT by up to 20 percent by 2030. These studies, however, do not take two essential aspects of increasing Digitisation into adequate consideration:

Firstly, digitisation triggers changes in demand. Completely new products and services are emerging or existing solutions are becoming better quality and cheaper at the same time, so that there is greater demand for them. Secondly, the use of ICT solutions is associated with national and international shifts in production processes.

Together with the ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research and the practice partner Zweckverband Kommunale Datenverarbeitung Oldenburg (KDO), Borderstep analyses the climate protection effects of digitisation on the basis of case studies and macroeconomic considerations.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the funding programme “Economics of Climate Change”.