“In 5 years, during calls for tenders, the Green IT part was a secondary criterion, now it is an eliminatory criterion,” said Killian Vermersch, CEO and co-founder of Golem.ai, shows the current reconsideration and necessity of the Green IT criterion in manufacturing processes. Green IT refers to all information technologies (ICT) whose use reduces the harmful effects of human activity on the environment and all technologies that will reduce the environmental impact of computing, according to the definition of Greenly.
Ainsi ce Panel, organisé par Scaleway le 7 février 2024, invitait des intervenants de renom tels que Thomas de Latour, Ingénieur en écoconception et Docteur en informatique chez Ademe, Lise Breteau, Avocate Environnement & Tech chez GreenIT.fr, Bastien Wirtz, DevOps Engineer at Scaleway, and Killian Vermersch to discuss this topic and think about sustainable solutions, compatible with current IT challenges.
A regulatory framework is in place
Regulatory pressure is starting to take place such as the law Reduction of the Environmental Footprint of Digital (REEN) voted in November 2021 which includes the obligation for municipalities and EPCI of more than 50,000 inhabitants to equip themselves on January 1, 2025, a responsible digital strategy, or the obligation for a number of products to display a repairability index to fight against their planned obsolescence. Moreover, the arrival of the CSRD, which is a regulatory framework aimed at strengthening sustainability requirements for companies operating within the European Union, also shows the desire for the necessary regulatory pressure regarding GreenIT.
However, this is not yet enough
Indeed, when we know that “websites weigh 200% more than 10 years ago” according to Bastien Wirtz, or that “50% of the digital carbon footprint is due to the extraction of non-renewable resources” According to Lise Breteau, we note that the current regulatory changes are still just “mouse steps”, insists Thomas de Latour. Indeed, the 4 speakers insisted on the fact that if France is a pioneer in this drive for eco-design, and that it should be welcomed, it was also necessary to understand that the question was no longer whether IT was eco-friendlycompatible, but it had to be made as such.
Therefore, solutions are emerging and must continue to emerge
There are a multitude of solutions that can and should be applied. Here are some solutions that were provided during this Panel:
“By only changing architecture, we were able to reduce our electricity bill by 5,” says Killian Vermersch. Favouring static website designs would greatly reduce the digital footprint of websites, according to Bastien Wirtz. By adopting the Slow-Tech, so the fact of combining much more low-tech as well as high-tech (which is not the case today with too much emphasis given to high-tech), and use EFP Method for Lise Breteau
Il faut également comprendre qu’il n’y a hélas pas de solutions miracles mais qu’il est nécessaire de combiner un ensemble de solutions accompagné d’un cadre réglementaire assez strict pour pouvoir rendre l’IT soutenable.
Thus, we can conclude from this Panel that if regulatory pressure is increasingly put in place, notably thanks to the REEN Act or the CSRD, we must internalize the fact that this is not yet sufficient, and that efforts remain to be made both from the point of view of manufacturers and consumers. Therefore, it must be stressed that regulatory pressure must be increased and solutions to make IT frugal must constantly emerge.
Moreover, frugality is an area that is dear to us at Golem.ai, as evidenced by the tribune by Killian Vermersch for Entreprendre
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