The Global e-Sustainability Initiative and the Climate Group recently released a report that outlines the unique ability of information technology to monitor and maximize energy efficiency. The report, “SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age,” concludes that we could cut CO2 emissions by up to 7.8 gigatons by 2020, which is greater than the current annual emissions of either the U.S. or China. And, the economic impact could save as much as $800 billion globally.
“These actions can be summarised as the SMART transformation. The challenge of climate change presents an opportunity for ICT to first standardise (S) how energy consumption and emissions information can be traced across different processes beyond the ICT sector’s own products and services. It can monitor (M) energy consumption and emissions across the economy in real time, providing the data needed to optimise for energy efficiency. Network tools can be developed that allow accountability (A) for energy consumption and emissions alongside other key business priorities. This information can be used to rethink (R) how we should live, learn, play and work in a low carbon economy, initially by optimising efficiency, but also by providing viable low cost alternatives to high carbon activities. Although isolated efficiency gains do have an impact, ultimately it will be a platform – or a set of technologies and architectures – working coherently together, that will have the greatest impact. It is through this enabling platform that transformation (T) of the economy will occur, when standardisation, monitoring, accounting, optimisation and the business models that drive low carbon alternatives can be developed and diffused at scale across all sectors of the economy.”
