A high-level estimate of the material footprints of the ICT and the E&M sector

ICT for Sustainability Pub Date : 2018-05-10 DOI:10.29007/q5fw

J. Malmodin, P. Bergmark, Sepideh Matinfar

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引用次数: 10

Abstract

This paper attempts to make a high-level estimate of the material footprints of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Entertainment and Media (E&M) sectors for one year from four different perspectives while including the full life cycle of products and applying a top-down perspective. The four perspectives explored are: i) amount of materials used; ii) carbon footprint of the materials focusing on Raw Materials Acquisition (RMA) and End of Life Treatment (EoLT) stages; iii) material resource depletion; and iv) toxicity of materials. For the given assumptions, it is estimated that the sectors represent about 0,5% of the global annual usage of the selected materials, and for several materials (indium, gallium and germanium), ICT and E&M usage represents as much as 80-90% of the overall usage. Their use of materials represents about 0.9% of the carbon footprint for the selected materials, and about 0.1% of the total global carbon footprint, while the sectors material resource depletion potential is estimated to be between 13% and 48% of overall global depletion for the selected materials, depending on impact assessment method. Finally, the for toxicity of the selected materials, plus cement production, ICT and E&M are estimated to represent about 3.3%, based on ReCiPe. Toxicity and resource depletion results and the mass result for specific materials all indicate that the ICT and E&M sectors play a larger role than their average share of the total annual materials usage indicates, and gold and copper are identified as the most impacting materials. The applied top-down method provide only coarse estimates and further research is needed based on bottom-up methods. Keywords—ICT, ICT sector, E&M, E&M sector, EEE, material footprint, material carbon footprint, resource depletion potential, mass, toxicity EPiC Series in Computing Volume 52, 2018, Pages 168–186 ICT4S2018. 5th International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Sustainability B. Penzenstadler, S. Easterbrook, C. Venters and S.I. Ahmed (eds.), ICT4S2018 (EPiC Series in Computing, vol. 52), pp. 168–186

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对信息通信技术和机电行业的材料足迹的高层次估计

本文试图从四个不同的角度对信息和通信技术(ICT)和娱乐和媒体(E&M)行业一年的材料足迹进行高层次的估计，同时包括产品的整个生命周期，并采用自上而下的视角。研究的四个角度是:1)材料使用量;ii)材料的碳足迹，主要集中在原材料获取(RMA)和生命终止处理(EoLT)阶段;Iii)物质资源枯竭;四是材料的毒性。对于给定的假设，估计这些部门约占所选材料全球年使用量的0.5%，对于几种材料(铟、镓和锗)，ICT和E&M的使用量占总使用量的80-90%。他们使用的材料约占所选材料碳足迹的0.9%，约占全球碳足迹总量的0.1%，而根据影响评估方法的不同，该部门的材料资源枯竭潜力估计在所选材料的全球总枯竭的13%至48%之间。最后，根据ReCiPe，所选材料的毒性，加上水泥生产，ICT和E&M估计约占3.3%。毒性和资源消耗结果以及特定材料的质量结果都表明，ICT和E&M部门的作用大于其在年度材料使用总量中的平均份额，其中黄金和铜被确定为影响最大的材料。应用的自顶向下方法只能提供粗略的估计，需要在自底向上方法的基础上进一步研究。关键词:ICT, ICT行业，机电，机电行业，EEE，材料足迹，材料碳足迹，资源枯竭潜力，质量，毒性EPiC Series in Computing vol . 52, 2018, page 168-186 ICT4S2018。第五届信息和通信技术可持续发展国际会议B. Penzenstadler, S. Easterbrook, C. Venters和S.I. Ahmed(编)，ICT4S2018 (EPiC Series in Computing, vol. 52)， pp 168-186

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ICT for Sustainability

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