SYMPACT
Exploring the environmental impact of digital transformation
Abstract
Digital technology is transforming the news, media and publishing industries, through the movement of activity to the web accessed both through PC and 3G phone, specialised eReader devices such as the Kindle, and the flexibility that digital printing offers over traditional offset approaches. This transformation is coming at a time of increased concern over energy availability and greenhouse gas emissions. Will the transformation decrease or increase the energy requirements of the news and media industry? Can the industry embed an understanding of the future energy/climate implications in the strategic decisions it makes? The SYMPACT project aims to support this understanding by considering a number of questions; what is the environmental impact of both print and online media? How will changes in technology alter this impact over time? How is digital technology changing customer behaviour now, and how might this happen in the future? What new business models do technological advances open up, and how will they affect the environmental impact? How will environmental factors, such as carbon pricing, act as business and behavioural drivers within this system? Beyond energy and climate, what other sustainability implications might this transformation have?Publications
| Systems modelling of new media services | Proceedings of the 29th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society | Washington DC, USA, July 24-28, 2011 | Yearworth, M., Schien, D., Preist, CW., Shabajee, PJS |
| Energy Use in the Media Cloud: Behaviour Change, or Technofix? | Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on | Nov. 30 2010-Dec. 3 2010 | Preist, CW.; Shabajee, PJS.; |
| Dynamic Carbon Footprinting of Digital Services | International Conference on Environmental Informatics (EnviroInfo) 2011, Joint Research Center (JRC), Ispra, Italy | 4.10.2010 | Schien, D, Preist, CW, Shabajee, P & Yearworth, M. |