The iceberg effect
When we think about IT's environmental cost, data centres come to mind first. They are visible, they consume measurable amounts of electricity, and operators publish PUE figures. But focusing only on data centres misses most of the impact.
Across our assessments, end-user devices, laptops, smartphones, screens, peripherals, represent roughly three quarters of the total footprint, mostly because of the carbon embedded in their manufacturing.
Where the footprint actually lives
- Manufacturing of devices: extraction, transport and assembly.
- Operation of devices: electricity consumed during their lifetime.
- Networks: routers, antennas, undersea cables.
- Data centres: servers, cooling, redundancy.
- End-of-life: recycling, e-waste, rare-earth recovery.
Why averages mislead
Generic emission factors hide huge differences between contexts. A laptop in a country with low-carbon electricity has a very different operational footprint than the same laptop in a coal-heavy grid. A workload running in a hyperscale region with renewable PPAs is not the same as one in a legacy on-prem rack.
This is why we always combine global standards with location-specific data, to give organisations a footprint they can actually act on.
"You cannot reduce what you have not measured. And you cannot measure credibly without context."
Where to act first
Three levers consistently deliver the largest impact: extending device lifespan, rationalising the application portfolio, and choosing low-carbon cloud regions. The order varies, but those three account for the majority of feasible reductions in the first 24 months of a Sustainable IT programme.