Measuring the Environmental Impact of ICT Hardware

Measuring the Environmental Impact of ICT Hardware

Barbara Krumay Roman Brandtweiner 

WU Vienna, Institute for Information Management and Control

Page: 
1064-1076
|
DOI: 
https://doi.org/10.2495/SDP-V11-N6-1064-1076
Received: 
N/A
| |
Accepted: 
N/A
| | Citation

OPEN ACCESS

Abstract: 

Society needs information and communication technology (ICT) hardware to produce, process and store highly valuable information. This hardware, of course, affects the environment throughout its whole life cycle, starting with manufacturing, where the necessary scarce and precious resources (e.g. rare earth metals) are often mined under miserable environmental conditions. This leads to pollution of soil, water and air in the present as well as for the future. During the use phase of ICT hardware, energy consumption impacts the environment. At the end of life of ICT hardware, recycling, disposing as e-waste in landfills or disassembling are additional impacts that affect the environment. More and more producers and users, especially companies, want to measure these impacts, which is a complex task. However, approaches to measure the impacts are at hand, either  as single indicators, measuring one specific impact, or as composed indicators, combining different single indicators into one ‘summarizing’ indicator. However, collection of data, measurement, assessment and interpretation are challenging. Unfortunately, guidelines for those who want to measure the impact of ICT hardware are rare. With our research, we aim to shed light on the various approaches to measure impacts of ICT hardware as well as their application in practice. Based on a literature review, we identified different indicators and  them to the attention of experts from companies to assess these approaches in terms of practicability, significance and value for practice. The results show that research investigates and proposes a variety of different more or less complex indicators. However, business prefers single indicators, which are easy to measure and understand.

Keywords: 

impact of ICT hardware, measurement, performance indicators

  References

[1] Neely, A., The performance measurement revolution: why now and what next? International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 19(2), pp. 205–228, 1999. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01443579910247437

[2] Venkatraman, N. & Ramanujam, V., Measurement of business performance in strategy research: a comparison of approaches. Academy of Management Review, 11(4), pp. 801–814, 1986.

[3] Neely, A.D., Business Performance Measurement: Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

[4] Healy, P.M. & Palepu, K.G., The effect of firms’ financial disclosure strategies on stock prices. Accounting Horizons, 7(1), p. 1, 1993.

[5] Parmenter, D., Key Performance Indicators (KPI): Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.

[6] van Rekom, J., Go, F.M. & Calter, D.M., Communicating a company’s positive impact on society—can plausible explanations secure authenticity? Journal of Business Research, 67(9), pp. 1831–1838, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.12.006

[7] Caritte, V., Acha, S. & Shah, N., Enhancing corporate environmental performance through reporting and roadmaps. Business Strategy & the Environment, 24(5), pp. 289–308, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bse.1818

[8] Nnorom, I.C. & Osibanjo, O., Overview of electronic waste (e-waste) management practices and legislations, and their poor applications in the developing countries. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 52(6), pp. 843–858, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2008.01.004

[9] Dhaliwal, D.S., Li, O.Z., Tsang, A. & Yang, Y.G., Voluntary nonfinancial disclosure and the cost of equity capital: the initiation of corporate social responsibility reporting. The Accounting Review, 86(1), pp. 59–100, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.2308/accr.00000005

[10] Wallström, M., Active or reactive - CSR reporting and sustainable development as tools for smart growth, In GRI Conference - Reporting Sustainability, V.P.o.t.E.C.r.f.I.R.a.C. Strategy, Editor: Amsterdam, 2006.

[11] Hammond, A.L. & Institute, W.R., Environmental Indicators: a Systematic Approach to Measuring and Reporting on Environmental Policy Performance in the Context of Sustainable Development, World Resources Institute Washington, DC, 1995.

[12] Ferreira, A.M. & Pernici, B., Managing the complex data center environment: an integrated energy-aware framework. Computing, pp. 1–41, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00607-014-0405-x

[13] Mickoleit, A., Greener and Smarter. ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change, OECD, Editor, 2010.

[14] Alonso, E., Sherman, A.M., Wallington, T.J., Everson, M.P., Field, F.R., Roth, R. & Kirchain, R.E., Evaluating rare earth element availability: a case with revolutionary demand from clean technologies. Environmental Science & Technology, 46(6), pp. 3406–3414, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es203518d

[15] Schüler, D., Buchert, M., Liu, R., Dittrich, S. & Merz, C., Study on Rare Earths and their Recycling, Ö.-I. eV, Editor. Darmstadt, 2011.

[16] Humphries, M., Rare earth elements: the global supply chain. CRS Report for Congress, ed. C.R. Service, DIANE Publishing: Washington, 2010.

[17] Bertoldi, P. & Atanasiu, B., Electricity consumption and efficiency trends in the enlarged European union, In JRC Scientific and Technical Reports, European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Energy: Luxembourg, 2009.

[18] Cairns, C.N., E-waste and the consumer: improving options to reduce, reuse and recycle. Electronics and the Environment, 2005. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Symposium on, IEEE, pp. 237–242, 2005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ISEE.2005.1437033

[19] Boudier, F. & Bensebaa, F., Hazardous waste management and corporate social responsibility: illegal trade of electrical and electronic waste. Business & Society Review, 116(1), pp. 29–53, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8594.2011.00376.x

[20] Robinson, B.H., E-waste: an assessment of global production and environmental impacts. Science of the Total Environment, 408(2), pp. 183–191, 2009. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.09.044

[21] GRI Global Reporting Initiative, Global Reporting Guidelines, 2014 available at https://www.globalreporting.org/resourcelibrary/GRIG4-Part1-Reporting-Principlesand-Standard-Disclosures.pdf

[22] Wackernagel, M. & Rees, W., Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth, New Society Publishers, 1998.

[23] Bird, S.M., David, C., Farewell, V.T., Harvey, G., Tim, H. & Peter, C., Performance indicators: good, bad, and ugly. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 168(1), pp. 1–27, 2005. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2004.00333.x

[24] Blengini, G.A., Fantoni, M., Busto, M., Genon, G. & Zanetti, M.C., Participatory approach, acceptability and transparency of waste management LCAs: case studies of Torino and Cuneo. Waste Management, 32(9), pp. 1712–1721, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2012.04.010

[25] Lenzen, M., Murray, J., Sack, F. & Wiedmann, T., Shared producer and consumer responsibility—theory and practice. Ecological Economics, 61(1), pp. 27–42, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.05.018