My slides for the Digital 2020 GreenICT mini-conference: http://www.digital2020.org.uk/skills/events/green There are quite extensive notes which can be read from slide 21 onwards.

1. 'Green ICT':
More efficiently unsustainable?
Joss Winn
Centre for Educational Research and Development
University of Lincoln
jwinn@lincoln.ac.uk
January 2010

2. The Jevons Paradox
Technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is
used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that
resource… In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given use,
improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource – which
increases demand and speeds economic growth, further increasing demand.
Overall resource use increases or decreases depending on which effect
predominates… The Jevons Paradox only applies to technological
improvements that increase fuel efficiency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

3. What 'energy efficiency' looks like...

4. Economic growth is not absolutely decoupled from emissions
Relative decoupling: The UK reported a 15% decrease in emissions from 1990-
2005.
Absolute decoupling? In fact, UK emissions increased by 19% during 1990-
2003 when emissions from aviation, overseas trade, shipping and tourism were
accounted for.
“The UK’s environmental impact is as significant from the
resources exploited to produce its imports as from the domestic resources it
consumes. It mandates counting emissions on a consumption basis.”
Too Good to be True? The UK's Climate Change Record
http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/node/656

5. Technological efficiencies, increased energy consumption and increased GDP, are all linked

6. In a business-as-usual scenario, global energy demand is forecast to
rise by 40% by 2030. Fossil fuels account for over 75% of supply.

8. What about renewables?
Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROIE)

9. Common features of the plans The five plans
David MacKay's Five Plans for providing renewable energy for the UK by 2050.
They all assume significant energy efficiencies, as seen in the left image.

10. Peak Oil
Hubbert's Curve
The dotted line is actual production. Notice how the energy crisis in
the 1970s 'corrected' the trend.

11. Global oil production has plateaued since 2005 and has started
to drop.
Has Peak Oil arrived? Will we see $175/barrel oil in 2012? Oil
hit an all-time high of $147/barrel in July 2008, two months prior
to the financial crash.

12. “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented
risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility
will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political
costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand
sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance
of peaking.”
The ‘Hirsch Report’: Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation
and Risk Management.
We need 10-20 years of intense global effort to move away from oil
without unprecedented economic, social and political costs. If oil did
peak in 2005, we've left it too late...
...but an unprecedented shift to zero carbon fuels, assumes the use
of energy intense fuels such as oil, to get us there. We can't build
nuclear power stations on wind and solar power.

13. 83

14. Our economic model of growth, the paradox of
efficiencies, the reality of EROEI and the time we
have to act, does not lead us to 'sustainability'.
A more useful, honest way of understanding and
addressing our predicament is in terms of 'resilience'.

15. “Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while
undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure,
identity and feedbacks.”

16. Q: “Why be Green?”
A: “Resilience”
(but let's not kid ourselves)

17. Energy depletion and climate change will impose a different economic model.
We can wait for it to happen...
Source: http://managingwithoutgrowth.com

18. ...or we can plan for a more resilient economy and work towards it.
We need to redefine terms like 'Prosperity', 'Sustainability', 'Business Continuity'
Source: http://managingwithoutgrowth.com

19. What would change?
● New meanings and measures of success
● Limits on materials, energy, wastes and land use?
● More meaningful prices
● More durable, reparable goods
● Fewer status goods
● More informative advertising
● Better screening of technology
● More efficient capital stock
● More local, less global
● Reduced inequality
● Less work, more leisure
● Education for life, not just work
Source: http://managingwithoutgrowth.com
See also: Steady State Economy FAQ
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEFAQs.html

20. Resilience, it seems to me, is a pre-requisite for sustainability if
you accept the tangible and coupled threats of energy security
and climate change enforcing long-term zero or negative growth.
If oil production has peaked just prior to the worst economic
crisis in living memory and faced with the need to reduce carbon
emissions by at least 80% in the next forty years, should we not
first develop a more resilient model that we wish to sustain?
In terms of energy use, can efficiencies alone lead to
sustainability? No. Can renewables supply the ever increasing
global demand for energy? No. At what point does ‘efficiency’
actually mean conservation, rationing and frugality? At what point
do we change our habits, our ambitions and our institutions
instead of telling ourselves that we are being efficient, as we do
today?
GreenICT, if it exists, may be thought of as ICT which contributes
towards a zero growth or Steady State economy.

21. 'Green ICT':
More efficiently unsustainable?
Joss Winn
Centre for Educational Research and Development
University of Lincoln
jwinn@lincoln.ac.uk
January 2010 1
This is a presentation for the 'Green IT Mini Conference' in Leeds,
January 2010. I think I was invited to join the conference
because I have recently started writing about the wider
implications of what we mean by 'sustainability', focusing largely
on the role of energy in our lives. Increasingly, my main area of
interest is the potential for a systemic collapse of Higher
Education due, in part, to its institutional and pedagogical
dependence on technology. I think there is a pressing need to
build resilience into the future provision of Higher Education and
that is likely to require radical changes at both the micro and
macro levels.
The phrase, 'more efficiently unsustainable', is borrowed from Bill
Rees:
http://joss.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2009/11/16/bill-rees-the-vulnerability-
and-resilience-of-cities/

22. The Jevons Paradox
Technological progress that increases the efficiency with which a resource is
used, tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that
resource… In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given use,
improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource – which
increases demand and speeds economic growth, further increasing demand.
Overall resource use increases or decreases depending on which effect
predominates… The Jevons Paradox only applies to technological
improvements that increase fuel efficiency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
2
Theoretically, a way to manipulate or curb the Jevons Paradox is through taxation. As the
real cost of things gets cheaper, add more tax to maintain the price. i.e. a 'Green Tax'
“"Efficiency first" sounds good, especially when referred to as "win-win" strategies or more
picturesquely as "picking the low-hanging fruit". But the problem of "efficiency first" is
with what comes second. An improvement in efficiency by itself is equivalent to having
a larger supply of the factor whose efficiency increased. The price of that factor will
decline. More uses for the now cheaper factor will be found. We will end up consuming
more of the resource than before, albeit more efficiently. Scale continues to grow. This
is sometimes called the "Jevons effect". A policy of "frugality first", however, induces
efficiency as a secondary consequence; "efficiency first" does not induce frugality--it
makes frugality less necessary, nor does it give rise to a scarcity rent that can be
captured and redistributed.”
Economist, Herman Daly: 'The Illth of Nations and the Fecklessness of Policy:
An Ecological Economist's Perspective'.
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue22/Daly22.htm

23. What 'energy efficiency' looks like...
3
In terms of overall efficiency, rather than focusing on the use of electricity to power ICT in the UK,
it is more useful to look at regional or global energy use. The embodied energy of ICT needs
to be accounted for and understood as part of a global economic energy system.
A 2008 paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4PYR4NP-
1/2/03c633d91324a9a96040ff02e9e34864) estimated that UK Higher Education Institutions
spent around £300m on energy in 2006, an increase of 0.5% since 2001 and representing
1.6% of total income.
This review reveals that the energy consumption levels in UK HEIs increased by about 2.7% over
the 6-year period between 2001 and 2006. The building energy-related CO2 emissions are
estimated to have increased by approximately 4.3% between 2005 and 2006 alone. These
trends run contrary to the national plans for emissions reductions in all sectors and are
therefore a cause for action.
The Sustainable ICT project estimated
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/sustainableictfinalreport.aspx) that around £60m
of the £300m (1/5th) was to power ICT. Since 2006, energy bills have risen by about 25% so
we might expect HEIs annual electricity costs to currently be around £375m, with ICT use
around £75m. The increase in the number of students in Higher Education has not resulted in
a corresponding increase in energy use; closer correlations can be found between floor space
and energy use and, interestingly, between research activity and energy consumption. The
more research intensive universities use relatively more energy. (see
Sector review of UK higher education energy consumption
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4SMF2H8-
1/2/e52205eabd2d08b8d21973ccefcae8cd)
Annual income of HEIs (http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/content/view/1404/161/) increased by
10% to £23.4bn between 2007-8 and total expenditure likewise increased by 9%. How would
an energy shock of +400% (http://www.uswitch.com/press-room/?
downloadfile=HOUSEHOLD-ENERGY-BILLS-TO-HIT-ALMOST-5K-IN-10-YEARS-TIME),
increasing sector-wide energy costs from £375m to £1.5bn over the next ten years, be
managed when income and spending appear to be so tightly coupled?

24. Economic growth is not absolutely decoupled from emissions
Relative decoupling: The UK reported a 15% decrease in emissions from 1990-
2005.
Absolute decoupling? In fact, UK emissions increased by 19% during 1990-
2003 when emissions from aviation, overseas trade, shipping and tourism were
accounted for.
“The UK’s environmental impact is as significant from the
resources exploited to produce its imports as from the domestic resources it
consumes. It mandates counting emissions on a consumption basis.”
Too Good to be True? The UK's Climate Change Record
http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/node/656
4
Half of our emissions occur abroad. For example, as our emissions from production have
decreased, China's emissions from production have increased. De-industrialised,
service-driven economies become more energy efficient because they import more
finished goods rather than raw energy and materials.
“50% of the emission growth from 2002 to 2005 was triggered by export production and
60% of these commodities are exported to the West [Weber et al., 2008]. In other
words, consumers in developed countries are at least partially responsible for one-
third of Chinese emission increase from 2002 to 2005.” Guan, D., Glen Peters, C.L.
Weber and K. Hubacek, 2009.
Journey to world top emitter – an analysis of the driving forces of China's recent CO2 emissions su
. Geophysical Research Letters, 36 (L04709)
http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~leckh/Guan et al. China_02-05_SDA_Draft.pdf
One third of China's emissions are from the production of exports. Guan, D., Hubacek, K.,
Weber, C.L., Peters, G.P. and Reiner, D.M. (2008)
The drivers of Chinese CO2 emissions from 1980 to 2030. Global Environmental Change
, 18 (4). pp. 626-634. ISSN 0959-3780 http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/5405/
For a study of economic growth and GHG emissions decoupling, see, Wei Ming Huang,
Grace W.M. Lee, Chih Cheng Wu,
GHG emissions, GDP growth and the Kyoto Protocol: A revisit of Environmental Kuznets Curve hy
, Energy Policy, Volume 36, Issue 1, January 2008, Pages 239-247, ISSN 0301-4215,
DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2007.08.035.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4PYR4NP-
1/2/03c633d91324a9a96040ff02e9e34864
For an excellent discussion of 'The Myth of Decoupling', see
Prosperity Without Growth – The Transition to a Sustainable Economy from the
Sustainable Development Commission, ‘The Government’s independent watchdog on
sustainable development' http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=914

25. Technological efficiencies, increased energy consumption and increased GDP, are all linked
5
Image source: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5969

26. In a business-as-usual scenario, global energy demand is forecast to
rise by 40% by 2030. Fossil fuels account for over 75% of supply.
6

27. 7
According to the IEA, this is what our use of fuels by
2030 should look like if we're to be on course to
achieve the 450ppm emissions target.

28. What about renewables?
Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROIE)
8
Image source: Energy is Everything
(http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48731)
A ratio of less than 5:1 means that around 20% of the economy
has to be used for 'energy gathering', compared to around 2.5%
for the USA today.
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2008/09/net-energy-cliff.html
Renewables (and nuclear) are less intensive forms of energy than
oil, coal and gas.
Efficiency gains, even if managed correctly, will not make up for the
lower EROEI of renewables.

29. Common features of the plans The five plans
David MacKay's Five Plans for providing renewable energy for the UK by 2050.
They all assume significant energy efficiencies, as seen in the left image.
9
Image source: Without Hot Air by David MacKay
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c27/page_212.sh
tml
“All these plans are absurd!”

30. Peak Oil
Hubbert's Curve
The dotted line is actual production. Notice how the energy crisis in
the 1970s 'corrected' the trend.
10
Image source: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5160
Oil is our primary source of fossil fuel energy. It is an
essential resource used in the supply chain of all
other energies.

31. Global oil production has plateaued since 2005 and has started
to drop.
Has Peak Oil arrived? Will we see $175/barrel oil in 2012? Oil
hit an all-time high of $147/barrel in July 2008, two months prior
to the financial crash.
11
Image source: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5979
Like all fossil fuels, oil is a finite resource and there is no disagreement about the supply
of oil eventually running out. The point however, is not about oil running out but rather
when it becomes uneconomic as a source of energy. The IEA would agree with this as
do the UK Energy Research Council, who last month, published the
Global Depletion Report, which is an authoritative review of all available evidence to
date. (http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.php?page=Global+Oil+Depletion)
They conclude:
“On the basis of current evidence we suggest that a peak of conventional oil production
before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020.”
If we accept that there will be a peak in the production of oil within ten years, if it hasn’t
already occurred, we might consider David MacKay’s Five Energy Plans for Britain,
and consider the alternatives. There are two significant variables that need to be taken
into account when considering a transition from oil to other energy sources. The first is
how long it will take to replace our current oil-based global energy infrastructure with
something we think is a viable alternative. The second is EROEI or net energy.
On oil prices and the recession, see James Hamilton’s paper, ‘Causes and
Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08′. It’s worth starting from a discussion on
The Oil Drum (http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5304), where you can download
the paper. For a more succinct summary, see the FT article here
(http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2009/04/03/was-the-us-recession-caused-by-the-
oil-shock-of-2007-08/) and a rebuke here (http://blogs.ft.com/energy-
source/2009/09/01/comment-searching-in-vain-for-the-oil-shock-effect/). Still, even the
rebuke recognises the impact oil can have on an economy: “It is through second-
round effects that inflation can rise. For an oil importer, a rise in the price of oil means
that the country is poorer as a whole. No matter what policy action they take, their
terms of trade have deteriorated.”

32. “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented
risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility
will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political
costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand
sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance
of peaking.”
The ‘Hirsch Report’: Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation
and Risk Management.
We need 10-20 years of intense global effort to move away from oil
without unprecedented economic, social and political costs. If oil did
peak in 2005, we've left it too late...
...but an unprecedented shift to zero carbon fuels, assumes the use
of energy intense fuels such as oil, to get us there. We can't build
nuclear power stations on wind and solar power.
12
The ‘Hirsch Report’: Peaking of World Oil Production:
Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management (PDF).
An often cited report commissioned by the US
Department of Energy in 2005
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_P
eaking_NETL.pdf

33. 83
13
From January 2010, we have 83 months left before
we are likely to be beyond the tipping point of
irreversible climate change. This is a conservative
estimate. December 2016.
See http://onehundredmonths.org for a brief, useful
technical report on how this was calculated.

34. Our economic model of growth, the paradox of
efficiencies, the reality of EROEI and the time we
have to act, does not lead us to 'sustainability'.
A more useful, honest way of understanding and
addressing our predicament is in terms of 'resilience'.
14

35. “Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while
undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure,
identity and feedbacks.”
15
This is the common definition of ‘resilience’ used by
the Transition Town movement adopted from Brian
Walker and David Salt, (2006) Resilience Thinking:
Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing
World. See Rob Hopkins (2008) The Transition
Handbook. From oil dependency to local resilience.
For an academic critique of the Transition Town’s
use of ‘resilience’, see Alex Haxeltine and Gill
Seyfang, Transitions for the People: Theory and
Practice of ‘Transition’ and ‘Resilience’ in the UK’s
Transition Movement. A paper presented at the 1st
European Conference on Sustainability Transitions,
July 2009 (http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/Tyndall-
Publications/Working-Paper/2009/Transitions-
People-Theory-and-Practice-‘Transition’-and-‘Res)

36. Q: “Why be Green?”
A: “Resilience”
(but let's not kid ourselves)
16

37. Energy depletion and climate change will impose a different economic model.
We can wait for it to happen...
Source: http://managingwithoutgrowth.com
17
The following three slides come from a presentation by Dr. Peter A.
Victor. Managing Without Growth. Slower by design, not
disaster. Conference on Economics, Population and
Sustainability. October 2009.
http://populationinstitute.org/newsroom/events/view/5/
http://managingwithoutgrowth.com/Home__MWG.html

38. ...or we can plan for a more resilient economy and work towards it.
We need to redefine terms like 'Prosperity', 'Sustainability', 'Business Continuity'
Source: http://managingwithoutgrowth.com 18

39. What would change?
● New meanings and measures of success
● Limits on materials, energy, wastes and land use?
● More meaningful prices
● More durable, reparable goods
● Fewer status goods
● More informative advertising
● Better screening of technology
● More efficient capital stock
● More local, less global
● Reduced inequality
● Less work, more leisure
● Education for life, not just work
Source: http://managingwithoutgrowth.com
See also: Steady State Economy FAQ
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEFAQs.html
19

40. Resilience, it seems to me, is a pre-requisite for sustainability if
you accept the tangible and coupled threats of energy security
and climate change enforcing long-term zero or negative growth.
If oil production has peaked just prior to the worst economic
crisis in living memory and faced with the need to reduce carbon
emissions by at least 80% in the next forty years, should we not
first develop a more resilient model that we wish to sustain?
In terms of energy use, can efficiencies alone lead to
sustainability? No. Can renewables supply the ever increasing
global demand for energy? No. At what point does ‘efficiency’
actually mean conservation, rationing and frugality? At what point
do we change our habits, our ambitions and our institutions
instead of telling ourselves that we are being efficient, as we do
today?
GreenICT, if it exists, may be thought of as ICT which contributes
towards a zero growth or Steady State economy.
20
From Prosperity Without Growth (http://www.sd-
commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=914) p.46:
…the answer to the question of whether growth is functional for stability is
this: in a growth-based economy, growth is functional for stability. The
capitalist model has no easy route to a steady-state position. Its natural
dynamics push it towards one of two states: expansion or collapse.
Put in its simplest form the ‘dilemma of growth’ can now be stated in terms of
two propositions:
Growth is unsustainable – at least in its current form. Burgeoning resource
consumption and rising environmental costs are compounding profound
disparities in social wellbeing
‘De-growth’ is unstable – at least under present conditions. Declining
consumer demand leads to rising unemployment, falling competitiveness
and a spiral of recession.
This dilemma looks at first like an impossibility theorem for a lasting
prosperity. But it cannot be avoided and has to be taken seriously. The
failure to do so is the single biggest threat to sustainability that we face.