Impacts of the Internet on the Environment, Beyond Carbon
draft-knodel-beyond-carbon-01

Sustainability and the Internet (SUSTAIN) RG                   M. Knodel
Internet-Draft                                                       CDT
Intended status: Informational                                  C. Adams
Expires: 7 January 2027                                        M. Thorne
                                                    Green Web Foundation
                                                             6 July 2026

       Impacts of the Internet on the Environment, Beyond Carbon
                     draft-knodel-beyond-carbon-01

Abstract

   The global internet is comprised of vast interconnected networks
   spanning nearly every surface of planet and sky that, together with
   user devices, consumes energy and emits greenhouse gases.  The true
   scale and proposed mitigations of the carbon footprint of the
   internet are the subject of important research.  The internet also
   requires the depletion of other natural resources beyond carbon,
   namely land, water, electromagnetic spectrum and minerals.
   Electronic waste contributes in particularly acute ways to
   environmental pollution.  This document surveys the impacts of the
   internet on the environment and includes, but goes beyond, energy use
   and carbon footprint to look at the consumption of natural resources
   and environmental waste.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-knodel-beyond-carbon/.

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   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/mallory/draft-beyond-carbon.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  The Internet's Environmental Impacts  . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Carbon  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Natural resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       2.2.1.  Land  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
       2.2.2.  Animals and other ecosystems  . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       2.2.3.  Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       2.2.4.  Electromagnetic spectrum  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       2.2.5.  Minerals  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     2.3.  Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   3.  Guiding Principles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   4.  Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   7.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13

1.  Introduction

   The internet is the biggest machine we've ever created, extending
   from the depths of the ocean all the way to low earth orbit.

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   Much research has been invested in understanding environmental
   impacts.  Research such as the ‘United Nations (UN) Digital Economy
   Report: Shaping an environmentally sustainable and inclusive digital
   future’ examines the true scale and proposed mitigations of the
   carbon footprint of the internet [UN].  Related research by the World
   Health Organisation primer on the health impacts of e-Waste details
   the harms incurred when the majority of e-waste is processed [WHO].
   Standardized methodologies also exist for conducting these
   assessments, such as Recommendation L.1410 from the International
   Telecommunication Union's Telecommunication Standardization Sector
   (ITU-T) for life cycle assessments of information and communication
   technology (ICT) goods, networks, and services [L1410].

   This document originated in discussions at the 2022 Internet
   Architecture Board (IAB) Workshop on Environmental Impact of Internet
   Applications and Systems [RFC9547].

   This document aims to briefly categorize a complete survey of
   environmental impacts due to a global internet operating at scale.
   It is the expectation that these impacts are persistent and some will
   have few to no mitigations, even given a very long arc of innovation
   and scientific advancement.  That is because each of these impacts
   are intimately tied to the physical limits of our planet, which are
   far more finite than our imaginations are capacious [Jansen].

   It is, however, of utmost importance to confront and understand the
   planet's limitations and the ways in which internet growth pushes up
   against them.

   A 'climate justice' approach to building internet architecture not
   only reduces the internet’s own environmental impact but reduces
   overall environmental impacts of our society.  [Manojlovic]

   Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks are a related
   but distinct lens through which the impacts of internet
   infrastructure are increasingly assessed.  In practice, however, ESG
   analysis of the technology sector tends to reduce to a tension
   between mining, for the battery and mineral inputs of the energy
   transition, and energy, from nonrenewable sources -- a reductionist
   frame relative to the fuller set of impacts surveyed in this document
   [WhiteCaseESG].  Nonetheless, addressing these impacts is also
   increasingly a business imperative: customers increasingly demand it,
   and regulation increasingly requires it, as with the EU's Corporate
   Sustainability Reporting Directive [CSRD] and Energy Efficiency
   Directive [EED].

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   This document summarizes the most promising mitigations in the
   context of internet networking.  We further suggest a principled
   approach to guide understanding the problem space and taking
   measurable action.  Our proposed approach aims for technical
   excellence, is informed by prior implementation and testing,
   documents clearly and concisely; and is open and fair in its
   assessments.

2.  The Internet's Environmental Impacts

   This section is arranged in three sub-sections: 2.1.  Carbon, 2.2.
   Natural Resources and 2.3.  Waste.  In the first section, of course
   carbon is a natural resource but in this document we rely on the vast
   research and documentation elsewhere to discuss the consumption of
   energy and its emissions in the form of greenhouse gas.  Land, water,
   electromagnetic spectrum and minerals are all finite, non-renewable
   resources that are consumed by internet infrastructure and these
   impacts are explained in depth with citations.  Lastly waste is
   discussed as its own very consequential impact on the pollution of
   the rest of the environment, living and nonliving.

2.1.  Carbon

   Carbon footprint is a concept that takes into consideration emissions
   and global warming and the ozone layer.  The projected impacts, and
   mitigations of global warming are extensively detailed in the
   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment [IPCC].
   Progress on allowing the ozone layer to recover since the 1980s is at
   risk of being undone as a result of the deployment of low-earth orbit
   constellation satellites [Ferreira].

   A primary driver of the carbon emissions of internet infrastructure
   stems from the energy sources powering it.  Not only is it often
   powered by non-renewable energy sources [IEA], but the amount of
   energy used is increasing faster than efficiency gains can offset
   [UptimeInstitute].

   In addition, the chip and semiconductor sector has a significant
   environmental footprint [StandEarth], as do other emerging digital
   technologies, notably artificial intelligence (AI) [SmithAdams].  The
   packaging and global transport of network equipment and end user
   devices is a further, often overlooked, source of carbon emissions.

   Energy consumption is the unequal distribution of and limitations on
   use of carbon energy for various purposes.  The share of global
   carbon emissions is unevenly distributed across countries, but also
   within countries across income levels [Oxfam].

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2.2.  Natural resources

   Natural resources such as land, water, minerals and electromagnetic
   spectrum are all impacted by increased digitalisation and the growth
   of the internet.  The Earth-system-science framework defines nine
   "planetary boundaries": climate change, novel entities (such as
   chemical pollution and plastics), stratospheric ozone depletion,
   atmospheric aerosol loading, ocean acidification, biogeochemical
   flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, freshwater use, land-system change,
   and biosphere integrity.  Six of these -- climate change, novel
   entities, biogeochemical flows, freshwater use, land-system change,
   and biosphere integrity -- have already been transgressed, suggesting
   that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for
   humanity [Richardson].

   These resources raise two distinct kinds of scarcity.  Some are
   finite in total quantity because they are non-renewable, raising the
   question of whether there is enough to go around at all.  Others
   raise a related but orthogonal issue of capacity, which is space-time
   dependent: whether there is enough to go around at a specific place
   and time, a question of equitable distribution and usage rather than
   total abundance.

2.2.1.  Land

   Internet infrastructure now occupies every physical domain: space,
   including deep space; the ground beneath our feet; and the sea, down
   to the sea bed.

   New work is beginning at the IETF to define an IP protocol stack for
   deep space communications, extending internet infrastructure beyond
   Earth orbit entirely [I-D.many-deepspace-ip-architecture].

   On the ground, internet infrastructure is often strategically placed
   geographically and geopolitically.  While the Earth's crust is finite
   in total (a background abundance constraint), the more immediate
   impact is one of capacity: a given site, once occupied by internet
   infrastructure, cannot simultaneously be used by other humans.

   Data centers themselves form a distinct land-use ecology, reshaping
   the geography, water tables, and energy grids of the regions that
   host them [Hogan].

   Two broad approaches to data center governance have emerged.  One is
   centered on market efficiency, intellectual property protection, and
   continued growth, often citing competitive advantages such as
   favorable climate or existing infrastructure.  The other treats land,
   water, and energy as scarce resources rather than assuming their

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   abundance, and argues for centring people and planet over profit and
   capital [JansenCath].  Product-level standards, such as the European
   Union's (EU) ecodesign requirements for servers and data storage
   products, offer a standards-based lever that could help
   operationalize this latter approach in law, constraining resource use
   and waste regardless of ownership model [EcodesignServers].

   At sea, undersea internet cables and related infrastructure disrupt
   the sea bed.  Furthermore untouched areas of the deep sea are being
   proposed for mining instead of reusing minerals already in
   circulation [Dutzik].  In addition, undersea internet cables face
   growing risk from extreme weather and sea level rise affecting the
   coastal infrastructure they depend on [Durairajan].

2.2.2.  Animals and other ecosystems

   This scarcity of land also affects animals and other ecosystems.  The
   Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
   Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity
   and Ecosystem Services in 2019 provided a IPCC-like basis for policy
   and decision making, evaluating 15000 scientific publications, from
   145 authors from 40 countries.  It found 82% of wild mammal biomass
   had been lost in the last 50 years, and called for transformative
   changes to avoid further biodiversity loss.  [IPBES]

   A "handprint" is a concept developed in contrast to footprint, to
   quantify the positive environmental impact of a technology, product,
   or organization.  Footprint and handprint are calculated
   independently, with footprint minimized and handprint maximized; a
   positive handprint should not be treated as compensating for a
   negative footprint, as doing so risks greenwashing
   [ITUSG5Biodiversity].

2.2.3.  Water

   Water is used extensively throughout the digital technology sector,
   particularly within data centers for cooling, for mineral extraction
   and production, and for chip and semiconductor manufacturing
   [Mytton].  Water is renewable at a global scale, so the primary issue
   is one of capacity rather than abundance: whether enough is available
   in a specific place at a specific time.  Water use continues to
   increase, driven primarily by more advanced AI and cloud computing
   needs, and often places strain on water resources in the communities
   surrounding data centers, an effect compounded where non-renewable
   groundwater aquifers -- themselves an abundance-constrained resource
   -- are drawn down faster than they can recharge.  Many data centers,
   chip fabs, and other digital infrastructure are being built in
   already water-stressed areas such as Spain and the U.S. state of

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   Arizona.  Chip fabrication is particularly water-intensive: Taiwan's
   semiconductor fabs alone consume tens of thousands of cubic meters of
   water per day, competing directly with agricultural and municipal
   supply during droughts [Roussilhe].

   This limits the availability of water for other human, animal, and
   ecosystem needs at that same place and time [Manojlovic].

2.2.4.  Electromagnetic spectrum

   Electromagnetic spectrum is not consumed or depleted by use, and the
   same frequencies can be reused in different places or at different
   times.  Its scarcity is therefore a matter of capacity rather than
   abundance: access to specific frequencies at a specific place and
   time continues to be allocated disproportionately to large companies
   and wealthier countries, despite ITU commitments to more equitable
   allocation.

2.2.5.  Minerals

   Minerals are the clearest case of an abundance-constrained resource
   in this document: once a deposit is extracted and consumed, it cannot
   be replenished on any human timescale.  Mineral extraction depletes
   finite resources.

   Extraction requires significant water use.

   It scars and degrades the Earth's crust.

   It destroys habitats.

   Extraction processes are toxic at the point of extraction.

   This limits the availability of land for other uses.

   Manufacturing network equipment and end user devices from these
   minerals carries its own environmental footprint, separate from the
   impacts of extraction itself.

   Global mineral extraction, processing, and refining also carries
   significant human rights impacts, including the use of forced labor
   for minerals sourced from conflict zones [MetalsGreenEurope].
   Despite minerals being finite resources, demand for them continues to
   grow rapidly as new digital and energy technologies depend on them
   [WorldBankMinerals].

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2.3.  Waste

   In the air -- pollution from fossil fuels, burning e-waste.

   On earth -- sanitation, landfills, polluting soil, limiting use of
   space, ecosystem disruption, as documented at e-waste processing
   sites such as Agbogbloshie, Ghana [Akese].  This waste also poisons
   water: toxic leachate from landfills and informal e-waste processing
   sites contaminates groundwater and waterways relied on by surrounding
   communities.

   In the sea -- undersea cables, mineral extraction byproducts, e-waste
   shipping, pollution.

   In space -- debris, crowding the sky scape, congestion, limit of use.

   Only a small fraction of e-waste is formally collected and recycled:
   22.3% globally in 2022, with e-waste generation growing nearly five
   times faster than documented recycling.  Recycling rates also vary
   sharply by region, from 42.8% in Europe to less than 1% in African
   countries [GEM2024].

3.  Guiding Principles

   As the practice of digital sustainability is still in development, we
   suggest the following principles to guide IETF’s approach to the
   topic, building on prior proposals for a sustainability stack for
   Internet architecture [King].  These principles are designed to be
   more enduring concepts that can inform solutions even as the
   technical specifics of those solutions evolve with the field.

   *  Open and fair: Claims about environmental impacts must be publicly
      verifiable, such as linking to publicly available evidence and
      allowing third party auditing.  Publicly verifiable evidence
      contributes to higher confidence in the measurements and
      facilitates independent monitoring and assessment as well as
      ensures fairer participation and competition, as in mandatory
      public reporting regimes such as the EU's data center
      sustainability indicators [EED].

   *  Timely: Where possible, move towards real-time information about
      impacts over an annual cadence or slower cadence.  More timely
      data enables more responsiveness and a higher resolution of
      understanding, as called for in ongoing work on green networking
      metrics and management [I-D.cx-opsawg-green-metrics] [RFC9845].

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   *  Within planetary boundaries: Treat the carrying capacity of the
      planet, as determined by the best available science, as a
      constraint to work within.  There is a safe operating capacity of
      the planet, that when breached represents a critical risk to
      people and ecosystems we are part of, causing avoidable harm.

   *  Demand and supply can both be levers: Reducing demand for
      resources is also a valid and important approach in addition to
      providing supply more efficiently, including by applying Internet
      architecture principles to energy systems directly [Nordman].

   *  Backwards compatibility: The maintenance of existing protocols and
      backwards compatibility in protocol design, as opposed to new
      protocol stacks such as "Green IP", reduces the need to
      manufacture new networking hardware and end user devices.

   *  Full-stack integration: Sustainability should be integrated
      throughout the stack, from software design and refurbished
      hardware procurement to grid-aware computing and the choice of
      hosting providers powered by renewable energy.

   *  Sustainable procurement: Sustainable and rights-respecting
      procurement practices should be prioritized and embedded
      throughout an organization.

   *  Sustainability by design: Sustainability should be embedded from
      the start of a project or protocol's design, not added as an
      afterthought.

   *  Data sharing: Sharing data about resource consumption improves
      reporting and transparency and helps create measurable benchmarks.

4.  Conclusions

   Key mitigations include reducing extraction, improving architectural
   efficiency to reduce cooling needs, and distributing resources more
   equitably.  Data localisation choices also affect environmental
   impact.  Backwards compatibility and protocol maintenance can serve
   as antidotes to premature hardware obsolescence, sometimes termed
   "Green IP".  The rapid growth of computationally-intensive
   applications, such as large language models, is a significant new
   driver of this resource demand [Bender].

5.  Security Considerations

   There are no security considerations for this document.

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6.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

7.  Informative References

   [Akese]    Akese, G. A., "Electronic Waste (e-Waste) Science and
              Advocacy at Agbogbloshie: The Making and Effects of the
              World's Largest e-Waste Dump", 2019,
              <https://research.library.mun.ca/14273/>.

   [Bender]   Bender, E. M., "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can
              Language Models Be Too Big?", 2021,
              <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922>.

   [CSRD]     European Union, "Directive (EU) 2022/2464 as Regards
              Corporate Sustainability Reporting", 2022,
              <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2464/oj/eng>.

   [Durairajan]
              Durairajan, R., Barford, C., and P. Barford, "Lights Out:
              Climate Change Risk to Internet Infrastructure", 2018,
              <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3232755.3232775>.

   [Dutzik]   Dutzik, T., "We Don’t Need Deep-Sea Mining", 2024,
              <https://publicinterestnetwork.org/wp-
              content/uploads/2024/06/We-Dont-Need-Deep-Sea-Mining-
              2024.pdf>.

   [EcodesignServers]
              European Commission, "Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/424
              Laying Down Ecodesign Requirements for Servers and Data
              Storage Products", 2019,
              <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/424/oj>.

   [EED]      European Union, "Directive (EU) 2023/1791 on Energy
              Efficiency (recast)", 2023,
              <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/1791/oj>.

   [Ferreira] P., F. J., "Potential Ozone Depletion From Satellite
              Demise During Atmospheric Reentry in the Era of Mega-
              Constellations", 2024,
              <https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL109280>.

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   [GEM2024]  International Telecommunication Union and United Nations
              Institute for Training and Research, "The Global E-waste
              Monitor 2024", 2024, <https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-
              D/Environment/Pages/Publications/The-Global-E-waste-
              Monitor-2024.aspx>.

   [Hogan]    Hogan, M., "Big Data Ecologies", 2018,
              <https://ephemerajournal.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/
              contribution/18-3hogan.pdf>.

   [IEA]      International Energy Agency, "Data Centres and Data
              Transmission Networks", 2024, <https://www.iea.org/energy-
              system/buildings/data-centres-and-data-transmission-
              networks>.

   [IPBES]    IPBES, "Summary for Policymakers of the Global Assessment
              Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services", 2019,
              <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3553579>.

   [IPCC]     Calvin, "International Panel on Climate Change Synthesis
              Report 2023", 2023, <https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/>.

   [ITUSG5Biodiversity]
              ITU-T Study Group 5, "ITU-T Study Group 5, Question 9/5:
              L.Biodiversity_footprint and L.Biodiversity_opportunities
              (Work in Progress)", 2026,
              <https://www.itu.int/ITU-T/workprog/wp_search.aspx?q=9/5>.

   [Jansen]   Jansen, F., "The problem is growth", 2023,
              <https://doi.org/10.58704/dmnx-1r61>.

   [JansenCath]
              Jansen, F. and C. Cath, "Down with Data Centres:
              Developing Critical Policy", 2024,
              <https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11059837>.

   [King]     King, M., Krishnan, S., Pignataro, C., Thubert, P., and E.
              Voit, "On Principles for a Sustainability Stack", 2022,
              <https://github.com/intarchboard/e-impact-workshop-
              public/blob/main/papers/King-Krishnan-Pignataro-Thubert-
              Voit_On-Principles-for-a-Sustainability-Stack.pdf>.

   [L1410]    ITU-T Study Group 5, "Methodology for Environmental Life
              Cycle Assessments of Information and Communication
              Technology Goods, Networks and Services", 2024,
              <https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-L.1410>.

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   [Manojlovic]
              Manojlovic, V., "Internet Infrastructure and Climate
              Justice", 2022, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/
              interim-2022-eimpactws-01/materials/slides-interim-2022-
              eimpactws-01-sessa-05-social-00.pdf>.

   [MetalsGreenEurope]
              Green European Foundation, "Metals for a Green and Digital
              Europe: An Agenda for Action", 2021,
              <https://www.wetenschappelijkbureaugroenlinks.nl/sites/
              wetenschappelijkbureau/files/2021-09/
              Metals_for_a_Green_and_Digital_Europe_A4_web.pdf>.

   [Mytton]   Mytton, D., "Data Centre Water Consumption", 2021,
              <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-021-00101-w>.

   [Nordman]  Nordman, B., "Applying Internet Architecture to Energy
              Systems", 2022, <https://github.com/intarchboard/e-impact-
              workshop-public/blob/main/papers/Nordman_Applying-
              Internet-Architecture-to-Energy-Systems.pdf>.

   [Oxfam]    Khalfan, A., "Climate Equality, A planet for the 99
              percent", 2023, <https://policy-
              practice.oxfam.org/resources/climate-equality-a-planet-
              for-the-99-621551/>.

   [Richardson]
              Richardson, K., "Earth beyond six of nine planetary
              boundaries", 2023,
              <https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458>.

   [Roussilhe]
              Roussilhe, G., "Water and Microchips: The Climatic and
              Industrial Future of Taiwan", 2021,
              <https://gauthierroussilhe.com/en/articles/water-and-
              microchips-the-climatic-and-industrial-future-of-taiwan>.

   [SmithAdams]
              Smith, H. and C. Adams, "Thinking About Using AI? Here's
              What You Can and (Probably) Can't Change About Its
              Environmental Impact", 2024,
              <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/publications/
              report-ai-environmental-impact/>.

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   [StandEarth]
              Stand.earth, "Clean Clicks or Dirty Chips? Despite
              Commitments to 100% Renewable Energy, U.S. Semiconductor
              Expansion Driving Demand for Dirty Energy", 2024,
              <https://stand.earth/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Clean-
              Clicks-or-Dirty-Chips-Feb-2024_230224.pdf>.

   [UN]       United Nations, "Digital Economy Report 2024.", 2024,
              <https://www.un-ilibrary.org/content/
              books/9789213589779.>.

   [UptimeInstitute]
              Bashroush, R. and A. Lawrence, "Beyond PUE: Tackling IT's
              Wasted Terawatts", 2020,
              <https://network.uptimeinstitute.com/sites/default/files/
              mammoth/2023/09/12/
              Keynote%20report%2034_Beyond%20PUE_Tackling%20IT%27s%20wasted%20terawatts.pdf>.

   [WhiteCaseESG]
              Wright, O., Weisberg, A., and T. Ferguson, "Taking ESG
              Seriously: The Crucial Role of Mining Investors in the
              Energy Transition", 2021, <https://www.whitecase.com/
              insight-our-thinking/taking-esg-seriously-crucial-role-
              mining-investors-energy-transition>.

   [WHO]      World Health Organization, "Electronic Waste (e-Waste)",
              n.d., <https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/
              electronic-waste-(e-waste).>.

   [WorldBankMinerals]
              Hund, K., "Minerals for Climate Action: The Mineral
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Appendix A.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Michael Oghia and Emile Stephan for
   their detailed reviews and suggested additions to this document.

Authors' Addresses

   Mallory Knodel
   CDT
   Email: mknodel@cdt.org

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   Chris Adams
   Green Web Foundation
   Email: chris@greenweb.org

   Michelle Thorne
   Green Web Foundation
   Email: michelle@thegreenwebfoundation.org

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