Prospects for an environmentally sustainable ICT society

Abstract

The article presents a study on the impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) on CO2 emission in our society in the short-term (until 2010) and long-term futures (until 2050). Studies on the ICT's impacts on CO2 emission in Japan in 2010 indicated that negative effects of ICT (increased CO2 emission by the use of ICT equipment and operation of infrastructures) were roughly up to 3% of the total CO2 emission in Japan, and that the positive effects (potential reduced CO2 emission by use of ICT systems) were up to 5%. To further clarify the relationship between ICT and energy consumption in our society, continuous verification of statistical data, such as paper production, newspaper circulation, amount of passenger transportation, is necessary. The article also introduces ongoing work on producing a vision for the long-term prospect for an ICT-supported environmentally sustainable society. It presents results of tentative quantitative evaluation of ICT's impacts on CO2 emissions in the long-term future. A critical issue that still requires consideration is the extent to which humans will accept substitution of reality with an ICT-supported virtual reality (e.g. substitution of in-store shopping with online shopping, substitution of conferences in meeting rooms with TV conferences, etc.)