Climate-Friendly Information and Communication Technology
May 17, 2020
This year’s World Telecommunication & Information Society Day highlights the connection between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Increasing digitalization provides both opportunities and challenges. New technologies such as artificial intelligence and the internet of things can contribute to improving people's lives and facilitate social and economic development, but large parts of the world’s population are not connected to the internet.
Innovation — a new idea, device, or method that satisfies a specific need-- is a means to achieve the SDGs. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are a fundamental aspect of innovation and technology transfer. They stimulate the diffusion of technologies by providing secure channels to share know-how, which in turn can provide the basis for licensing agreements. It is expected that increasing digitalization will lead to the rising importance of intellectual property.
ICT-related submissions in the WIPO GREEN database
The WIPO GREEN database is a catalogue of sustainable solutions and needs from across the world. It offers technologies from prototype to marketable products, available for license, collaboration, joint ventures and sale. It also contains needs as defined by companies, institutions and non-governmental organizations in search of technologies to address specific environmental, food security or climate change problems.
WIPO GREEN has prepared a special feature exploring ICT-related climate-friendly technology in its database. In a strict sense, green ICT is the use of technologies and techniques to lower the power consumption, or carbon footprint, of the ICT function. When compared with other sectors, the carbon footprint of ICT does not seem particularly significant, currently making up less than two percent of total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, with increasing digitalization, this footprint is expected to grow to account for as much as 14% of global emissions by 2040.
In its broader sense, green ICT also addresses the use of ICT as an enabling technology to help reduce power consumption outside of the ICT function. Its use could deliver strategic CO2 reductions in certain areas such as smart cities or intelligent transport.
ICT itself is not a specific WIPO GREEN category, however, many technologies and needs featured in the database use ICT (e.g. energy efficiency). ICT as such appears in a number of database subcategories:
- ICT in energy & energy management
- Measuring and monitoring greenhouse gases
- Pollution detection, measurement & monitoring
- ICT in pollution & waste management
- ICT in farming
- GIS & earth observation
- Hazard prevention & early warning systems
- ICT based transport solutions
- ICT in buildings & urban management urban planning
- Water reserves assessment, monitoring, & control
The database currently houses over 200 technology solutions and six needs regarding ICT. The top contributors of submitted technologies and needs are from Japan (91), followed by Israel (49), the USA (35), China (11) and Kenya (10).
Featured technologies
- Water monitoring of quality and quantity in real time (Chile, 2020, Water)
- Bi-Modal Real-Time Air Quality Solution (BRAQS) (China, 2020, Pollution & Waste)
- Environmental information management program (Japan, 2019, Energy)
Featured needs
- Fire start monitoring in wetland grassland areas
- Determination of gluten content in cereal production through satellite images of crop field
What can I do as a computer user?
Ms. Catherine Darbellay, IT training consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), has developed some practical tips on how individual users can reduce their ICT-related carbon footprint. This includes undertaking sustainable procurement, the sharing of ICT infrastructures, increasing the lifetime of equipment and avoiding printing.
Practical tips to reduce your carbon footprint through improved e-mail management and efficient searches:
- Targeting recipients
- Only copying necessary recipients
- Updating distribution lists
- Reducing attachment sizes
- Deleting spam emails
- Cleaning mailboxes
- Typing the URL directly into the address bar
- Optimizing and targeting searches
- Utilizing the favorites function
About WIPO GREEN
WIPO GREEN is a global marketplace for sustainable technology, supporting global efforts to address climate change. Through its online database and regional activities, WIPO GREEN connects green tech seekers and providers in order to catalyze green innovation and accelerate green tech transfer and diffusion.