Mastering the ecological impacts of digital cultural offer with ecodesign
Web 3, virtual tours, dematerialization of collections… our practices and the functioning of cultural structures are transformed with digital innovations. Yet the environmental impact of digital is significant, and growing. Ecodesign is a very useful approach to ask the right questions about digital, and use it wisely.
The impacts of the digital cultural offer
Streaming and digitisation of cultural activities: two structural trends
Two recent trends are changing the work of cultural structures: on the supply side, the multiplication of flow platforms (streaming) of cultural content, video in particular; and on the management side of cultural structures, an increasing proportion of the work that is done digitally.
More and more collections and works are digitized and available online, administrative processes are dematerialized… not to mention audiovisual production and post-production, done largely with digital tools.
Environmental impact difficult to assess, but growing
The digital aspect of the cultural sector and its impacts are now an ecological issue. In France, digital would represent 2.5% of the national carbon footprint. Globally, video would account for 60% of global web traffic and the carbon footprint of streaming would account for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions (2019 Shift Project report).
Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from digital are growing very fast, in contrast to the increasing control of GHG emissions in most other economic activities.
Diversification of digital offer and practices
In parallel, the forms of digital offer are diversifying. The "web 3" which relies on recent technologies such as blockchain (blockchain), non-fongible tokens (NFT) or metaverse, is gradually developing in the cultural world. The same applies to artificial intelligence, whose techniques are of growing interest. The environmental impacts of these different technologies are not yet fully studied, but some sources believe thatA single bitcoin would have a footprint of 169 tons of CO2.
The3-part study on the impact of digital technology in France, jointly conducted by ADEME and Arcep, and whose conclusions were reached between 2022 and 2023, is particularly useful for understanding the environmental impact of the digital sector. Thus, in France, where energy is mostly decarbonised, the use phase represents 21% of the environmental impact of digital technology, compared to 78% for the manufacturing phase.
More information on the deployment of digital sobriety in the management of cultural structures on our dedicated page
In order to control the impacts of the digital cultural offer, it is therefore necessary tosystematically question our needs in terms of digital practices.
Know the impact of digital, to use it intelligently and avoid rebound effects
Digital technology is undeniably attractive for the cultural sector: it can reach other audiences, or create other cultural practices. It may, under certain conditions, avoid cultural practices with higher ecological impacts (for example a virtual tour instead of a trip by plane highly emitting greenhouse gases). It is important, however, to know the impacts of digital technology and to avoid the risks of rebound effects ".
What is the "rebound effect"?
Therebound effect, otherwise called "Jevons Paradox", refers to the increase in consumption, following the reduction of the limits related to the use of a technology.
Here, it specifically refers to the new ecological impacts generated by new digital practices, or by theincreased use of digital technology enabled by technological advances.
In summary, advances that would optimize the use of resources and therefore reduce digital emissions ultimately create new practices, whose impacts are in addition to those of existing practices, which do not disappear.
Ecodesigning the digital cultural offer
It is essential to integrate the environmental impacts of digital in thinking about new digital services, particularly through ecodesign, which requires a global reflection on the use of digital and its ecological impacts.
It is thus essential to Why the digital service exists, and its relevance to a given objective. Theexistence of the service is she really necessary ? Can we do otherwise to develop a digital solution? A non-digital alternative service is it possible or even preferable?
If the service can only be rendered with digital, it will be necessary ensure that the ecological impacts of the service are limited, in particular by ensuring not result in equipment renewal the cultural structure or future users of the service in question. Care should also be taken to minimize data transfer, avoid high electricity consumption...
Some tools at your disposal
A ecodesign framework was designed as part of the interdepartmental mission «Digital Eco-responsible» of the Interdepartmental Digital Directorate, in collaboration with the Institute of Responsible Digital (INR).
EcoInfo has written a guide proposing criteria that make it possible to qualify or even quantify for some, the impacts of a project in artificial intelligence.
Ecoindex is a tool proposed by GreenIT for evaluate the ecological performance of a web page, according to several measures (classification, associated environmental impacts, «technical» footprint...).
Find more tools and guides on our Resource centre.
Initiatives & good practices
As part of the call for projects Green Alternatives supported by the General Secretariat for Investment and the Ministry of Culture, Qarnot Computing received funding for its project to address the still-fledgling efforts to reduce the carbon impact of the animation and VFX sector, with a geo-distributed and low-carbon data center model. Qarnot offers a workstation/infrastructure offering with a low environmental footprint based on cloud computing (cloud), adapted to the needs and expectations of the animation and VFX sector, first in France and then in Europe. This operational solution will be measurable, and it will allow the sector to decarbonize its activities on the IT and cloud side.
The BnF has pooled the resources allocated to the development of Gallica, its digital library, and is sharing its expertise with its partners by offering a white label digital library offer.
Learn more about the BnF website
As part of the Green Alternatives call for projects, the project will host at least 20 French video game development studios, of any size and from all over the country to produce decision-making tools for companies to invent and deploy new production methods with reduced environmental impact, and to disseminate widely these tools to make them accessible to the entire French sector.
Learn more about the Game Only site
This association collects power consumption information from animation studios through a protocol consisting of measuring the power consumption of production equipment over a week with a wattmeter. This data processing will make it possible to establish a scheme offering a more precise vision of the electricity consumption in production.
Learn more about the site of the Cartouch'Verte
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