Editorial
The Gist
- Data sustainability ignored. Tech's growth obsession overlooks data sustainability.
- Environmental impact of data. Data's rapid growth exposes significant environmental impacts.
- Rethinking data use. Urgent need to reassess data's role in sustainability and overconsumption.
As our environment comes under more and more pressure from the growth demands of rich humans, more and more recognize that this growth and overconsumption are the core problems we face. One area, however, that is still obsessed by growth, that still thinks that accelerated growth is the very goal of civilization, is the technology industry, particularly in its oversight, or lack of it, of data sustainability.
The growing awareness of data's environmental impact challenges customer experience and marketing leaders to rethink their reliance on massive data collection and processing. As the tech industry's obsession with data growth increasingly conflicts with global sustainability goals, these leaders must balance the pursuit of technological innovation with responsible data management and usage, ensuring that their strategies align with environmental concerns and evolving consumer values toward sustainability.
This shift toward more sustainable data practices represents not only a moral imperative but also an opportunity to lead in a market that is becoming increasingly conscious of environmental impacts.
Data Culture: More Equals Better Solutions
Deep within the culture and DNA of the technology industry is a foundational belief that all data is good, that the more data we have the better. According to this culture, data is critical to our economies and societies. Without digital data, we cannot function. Any costs of producing, processing and storing data are infinitely less than the benefits that come from this data. Data will solve everything, including all the crises we face. We just need more technological innovation and more data.
Related Article: Not Just Bad CX: Heavy Websites Tax the Poor, Environment
Data Centers Thrive Amidst Global Environmental Crises
Those in the data center industry are giddy with growth. They can hardly keep up with the exponential demand. The thought of data sustainability is nil. For data, it is boom time on a busted Earth. We may have a fresh water, biodiversity, soil, climate, plastics and ocean acidification crisis, but in the world of AI and data centers, it’s bonus time and maximum growth time. In conversations I’ve had with those in Big Tech over the years, it’s like they’re living on another planet, which possibly, in their minds, they are.
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Related Article: 90% of Data Is Junk and Terrible for the Environment
Data's Growth Exposes Its Environmental Impact
For all the benefits it brings, data causes multiple harms. Such harms have been easily hidden up until now because the relative environmental impacts of data have been small in comparison to other sectors. Not so anymore. Data centers are growing at such a pace now that they can no longer fly under the radar.
Data Surge: Environmental Cost and E-waste Crisis
Hundreds of millions of computer servers will be required to meet data demands, with massive mining and manufacturing impacts on materials and pollution. Major demands on land, water and electricity are being made to process and store data. E-waste is the fastest growing and one of the most toxic waste streams in the world. Data has major consequences. These harms are minuscule in comparison to the core harms that data causes.
Data Use Fuels Overconsumption and Surveillance Capitalism
By far the biggest harm of data is in its use. The engines of Big Tech are advertising, overconsumption, waste production and planned obsolescence. The primary purpose of most data is to encourage maximum production of data by people, and then use this data to build surveillance capitalism infrastructures whose core purpose is to police the growth of overconsumption.
Related Article: Digital Sustainability? The Nature of Digital Is Environmentally Destructive
Tech's 'More is Better' Mantra Clashes with Sustainability Goals
When we must focus on less, less, less to have any chance of a survivable planet, almost the entire focus of Big Tech is on more, more, more. At what point will we realize that the "tech visionaries" who claim to have all the solutions, are in fact the problem?
Rethinking Data Sustainability
We must begin to seriously examine data and think about data sustainability. What data do we need that has a true and real impact on genuine sustainability? What data is being used by the Growth Death Cult to drive infinite growth down the infinite highway on our finite planet? What data is waste? What data causes harm?
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