Digitalisation and Environmental Concerns

Abstract

Of all the technological revolutions the world has experienced, the digital revolution stands out as the most transformative, game changing, developmentally critical and a challenging field. It is game changing because it has brought-out radical shifts in the lifestyles and development of the countries. Today digital technology has become indispensable to every sector including core areas like manufacturing, agriculture, communication, transport, defence, space, environment, finance, business, medicine, wellbeing and leisure activities. The economies are already reaping the benefits of digitalisation. Even global environmental monitoring agencies are dependent upon the growing digital knowledge and technologies. Digitisation is transforming the entire developmental maps of the countries and in the process, the digital infrastructure itself is undergoing constant transformation inventing new devices and technologies to meet the changing needs of the societies across the world. Unfortunately this global party is being spoiled by certain environmental concerns. Its intensive energy use, pollution-ridden device manufacturing and the e-waste are the prime environmental issues confronting the countries today. This paper, while explaining the significance of digitalisation in the current development scenario across the world, discusses the emerging energy, environmental and public health problems. Besides, the paper attempts to present an environmentally sustainable digitalisation framework.

Keywords

Digitalisation, E-waste, Global Environment, Public Health.

Introduction

Digitalisation has emerged on the global development scene in a wider and faster way. It is contributing tremendously to the developments in almost all the sectors. With pronounced and realised benefits in its kitty, digitalisation is being promoted by the governments and the private sectors equally. In fact, it has become an integral element in the current globalisation scenario where the countries are connected digitally, though they may have their differences on other issues. The explosion of data, the rise of internet connectivity, and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence have indeed transformed the landscape of human capability and knowledge sharing. The digitalisation has become more significant with the automation initiatives in the industrial, transport, communication and a host of other areas. The automation primarily depends on digital technology applications. Automation reduces human burden but shifts that burden to digital sector that provides smart solutions. In the urban sector too, a global trend of applying the smart solutions under the umbrella of smart cities is developing fast in recent years. The smart cities aim at efficient management of city planning, transportation, traffic control, civic services, finance and pollution control activities. About 280 cities around the world have launched smart-city projects (Pitron, 2023). India also launched the smart city development programme in June, 2015 under which about 100 cities were selected. The main objective is to develop inclusive and environmentally sustainable cities with a focus on core civic infrastructure, shelter and pollution. In smart cities, data on various aspects is collected and processed by information technologies like sensors, geopositioning systems and even emerging Artificial Intelligence methods. All this will increase the digital interactions exponentially. Accompanied by these developments, certain environmental concerns are also emerging primarily due to intensive energy consumption and e-waste management issues. The crucial dimension here is the development of a massive digital infrastructure based on the critical resource of energy and natural resources like water and other valuable materials.

Digital Infrastructure

The 21st century has been witnessing an amazing digital technology revolution powered by high-tech products like computers, mobile phones, tablets and routers. It is estimated that in near future, almost every one of us would be making about 5,000 digital interactions per day and to meet such demand, the manufacturers of digital equipments are competing to produce more versatile and sophisticated, and easy to use products to woo the users. Further, vast networks with high powered transmission cables are laid in space, water and surface to transmit information across the consumers. To facilitate cloud technology, large data centers are being built. The major concern here is that the gigantic digital infrastructure is consuming considerable resources of the Earth. Regarding metals involved in the production of ICT products, it is estimated that the ICT accounts for about 12.5 per cent of global copper production, 7 per cent of global aluminum production, 15 per cent of palladium, 23 per cent of silver, 40 per cent of tantalum, 41 per cent of antimony, 42 per cent of ruthenium, 70 per cent of gallium, 80 per cent of germanium, 80 per cent of terbium, 60 per cent of indium, 50 per cent of erbium, europium and gadolinium, 63 per cent of dysprosium, and 26 per cent of neodymium. It may seem ironic to claim that digitalisation is dematerialising our economies, especially when the infrastructure enabling this transformation relies heavily on physical resources. From data centers and servers to the devices we use daily, digital technologies consume vast amounts of materials and energy. In fact, the digital sector now accounts for about 10 per cent of global electricity usage and contributes to roughly 4 per cent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions—challenging the notion that virtual progress is environmentally light. (Pitron, 2023).

Modern life is based on billions of digital interfaces everyday that produce data every minute. This massive data is processed, transported through cables, stored in energy intensive data centers and sent to people for further interfaces in a never ending continuum. The world has become truly connected at personal, community and country levels. The key element of the digitisation process is the volume of data—its generation, storage, transmission and consumption across the geographies. The digital technologies like 5G, Global Positioning System (GPS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled machines unfolding recently are further boosting the volume of data hugely.

Wonderland of Emerging Digital Technologies

In recent years, wondrous technological developments like 5G, GPS navigation, AI enabled robots and driverless cars have been emerging on the global digital scene. If 5G promises unimaginable data transmission, the GPS navigation and driverless cars transform the very face of the auto and transport sectors. AI enabled robotic technology boasts to reduce human roles in a multitude of fields like defence, space research, health, finance and manufacturing. The AI technology, on one hand, reduces human burden, on the other, it poses a potential threat to human beings as it may overtake human intelligence. The repercussions of the AI technologies cannot be forecast at the present juncture though several speculative claims are under circulation. Let us discuss the potential of these technologies and their effects on data volume and digital infrastructure.

The main claim of the 5G technology is that it facilitates super fast transmission of the data. It is estimated that this technology can transfer 10 times more data with 10 times more speed than the 4G. South Korea has already developed 5G on mobile networks on a massive scale covering about 20 per cent of contracts and 13 million people (Pitron, 2023) Many other countries including India have big plans to implement 5G technologies. The extraordinary speed and volume of the data transfer naturally attracts the customers in both the developed and developing countries. It has been observed that 5G is much easier to install and its latency can open gates for the introduction of automated and remote controlled gadgets like drones, robots and driverless cars. Application of these gadgets will transform the entire human and machine interface spectrum. On an advantageous side, it has great potential to optimise efficiencies in road traffic management, electricity distribution systems, and a myriad other areas.

On the infrastructure side, installing a 5G network requires more antennas as each antenna can cover only about 100 meters. Some primary assessments indicate that the need for 5G antennas will be double than that of 3G or 4G antennas. This implies installation of more antennas which consist of rare materials like gallium and scandium. From these antennas, individual coverage is done through fiber cables to relay data. The Fiber Broadband Association has estimated that this needs about 2.2 million kilometres of wired fiber—amazingly 55 times the circumference of the Earth. If the expected 60 per cent of the world population is to be covered by 2026, wired fiber demand will be mind boggling. Along with these, the mobile manufacturing companies also should produce 5G enabled phones, the business of which is already going on briskly (Pitron, 2023). Regarding volume of the data transmission through 5G, the Ericsson tech company estimated that by the end of 2025, 20 per cent of the internet users will use 200 gigabytes on 5G devices every month. This estimation excludes the Internet of Everything applications which is also catching-up steadily in the world (Ericsson, 2019).

Another technological innovation relates to GPS—the Global Positioning System. GPS technology helps space research and travel. In space research, it helps to measure the distances of the stars, planets, etc., in a more accurate manner. In the sphere of travel, the GPS- enabled navigation helps safer travel for both, road and air. Without GPS, it is difficult to imagine air travel today. GPS navigation has already become widely popular in respect of road travel too. With this technology, it is claimed that vehicular carbon dioxide emissions would reduce by 5 to 20 per cent. The negative aspect, however, relates to the effects on volume of data generated, stored and transmitted. For capturing necessary information, the GPS depends on a large number of cameras, radars and sonars. A GPS-enabled car is equipped with about 150 electronic control units, producing over 25 gigabytes of data per hour. Its onboard computer needs processing power of 20 laptop computers and a total of 100 million lines of code to run its software. In terms of data generation, it is far ahead of spaceships, telescopes, drones, etc. For instance, a spaceship needs 4,00,000 lines of code, Hubble Space Telescope requires two million lines of code, a military drone needs 3.5 million lines of code, and a Boeing 787 requires 14 million lines of code. Further, a smart car’s software is equivalent to 250 spaceships, or 50 Hubble Space Telescopes, or seven Boeing 787 planes. The forthcoming totally automated or driverless car is another technological wonder. It is estimated that a driverless car requires some 300 million lines of code to function. It has also been observed that a million driverless cars need as much data as the entire world population connected to the web (Pitron, 2023).

Another area that consumes considerable electricity concerns with the blockchain technology that employs digital encryption networks to establish distributed ledgers of information. This technology requires a substantial amount of electricity to track and verify digital transactions. For example, Bitcoin, a digital currency supported by blockchain technology consumes an annual electricity supply of 45.8 TWh surpassing the energy consumption of all consumers in Nevada, USA as per 2019 data. Further, China’s bitcoin industry is projected to consume 296.59 TWh of energy in 2024 contributing to 130.5 million tons of carbon emissions (Haisen Wang et al., 2023).

The most puzzling aspect of the digitisation process today concerns the emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI). Artificial devices like robots are slowly replacing human activities while reducing their role. It is claimed that apart from humans, in future, even machines can produce AI, confining human role to minimum like supervision. Already digital APPs like tolls, bolnets and spam bots are being used not only to dispatch spam mails but also to inflate social media rumours. For instance, in 2018, YouTube developed tools to detect inflated or fraudulent videos. All this shows that data production and communication is not only the prerogative of humans as machines are taking human roles and performing the tasks even more efficiently than humans in several fields. All this unfolds a complex web of networks of humans and machines, and even machine to machine. It is observed that if robots start producing data, it becomes difficult to control the data production and its measurement. Already, automated machines are being used in different sectors. For instance, there is an increasing role of algorithms in the financial sector. Today, bots perform over 70 per cent of the trades worldwide due to efficiency factors representing about 40 per cent of total world’s traded value. Further, algorithms are being developed by various fund management companies who manage hedge and other passive funds. The financial analysis is done more efficiently by machines making human role obsolete (Pitron, 2023).

Data Generation, Storage and Transmission

In the information and digital era, it is evident that data has become a critical element occupying the crucial place. As per the 2020 estimates, every minute 1.3 million people connect to Facebook, 4.1 million internet searches on Google, 4.7 million videos viewed on YouTube, $ 1.1 million spent on e-commerce websites, 190 million e-mails sent, 2.5 million images viewed, 59 million messages sent, 1,94, 444 tweets, 6,94, 444 scrolls, 4,00,000 apps downloaded, 19 million texts sent, and the list goes on and on. Among all these video streaming consumes more data. All these escalate pressure on the internet while adding to the global volume of data on an annual basis. For instance, the volume of data produced in 2010 was 2 zettabytes which grew to 47 zettabytes by 2020 and, it is predicted to increase to 175 zettabytes by 2025, 2,142 zettabytes by 2035 (Pitron, 2023).

Handling of this mountainous data is the critical problem in digitalisation process. Data is generated by software professionals spread across the globe. This data is generally developed, stored and transmitted in the myriad servers set-up in the offices. But, with the emergence of Cloud Technology, the entire scene has changed. Cloud computing technology in simple terms is delivering hosted services over the internet. Different services are rendered through cloud systems. Three common services are: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); Platform as a Service (PaaS); and Software as a Service (SaaS). Big companies maintain their own cloud services but many other tech firms cannot afford cloud infrastructure. In order to serve them, the strategy of constructing data centers is being adopted. The data centers render professional services and have become more popular in recent times. Construction of the big data centers requires huge amounts of money. The infrastructure consists of thousands of server computers networked together into parallel processing or grid computing systems. They employ sophisticated virtualisation technologies which allow computer systems to be divided into many virtual machines that can be rented temporarily to customers. As the data centers consume huge amounts of electricity, they are usually located in places where sufficient electricity is assured (Carr, 2023). Further, as the data centre services are rendered 24/7 running on electricity, frequent cooling is necessary. Electricity and water are the main resources for running the data centers. If data centers stop working, these cause heavy costs to companies. For instance, important services like travel, health, financial markets, security surveillance, etc., may be disrupted causing heavy losses to the concerned institutions, and inconveniences and hardships to people who avail the services. The data centers therefore, take utmost care in ensuring uninterrupted electricity and water supply. The quantum of electricity consumed by the data centers and networks sector is estimated to form two per cent of the global electric consumption (Wang et al., 2023). In the context of fast growing cloud services across the world, this figure may reach 8-10 per cent by 2030, that is, 4-5 times increase in over a decade. Bulk of this will be consumed by the data centers (Pitron, 2023).

The current digital physical infrastructure is very huge consisting of several devices manufacturing and selling centres, cable networks, offices and the data centers. This infrastructure will increase in future with the continued innovation and growth in digitalisation. Like industrialisation and urbanisation, digitalisation appears to be irreversible. This trend demands more and more electrical energy which adds to the problems of the already crisis-ridden energy sector today. Further, this will contribute to the increasing greenhouse gases as bulk of the energy is produced by burning the fossil fuels. The increasing digital devices and the constant innovations results in the accumulation of e-waste products, disposal of which has become a pollution threat today. Thus, digitalisation will further worsen the current global environmental crisis if appropriate measures are not taken in time. The following section discusses the emerging environmental concerns caused by digitalisation.

Digital Transformation and Pollution Concerns

On the positive side, digitalisation contributes to efficiency in all human activities; leads to several facilities and comforts, on the negative side, it has become an environmental issue posing pollution and public health threats. There are mainly two areas where pollution problems arise, one relates to the manufacturing of various electronic devices and the other concerns e-waste management.

Manufacturing electronic components

At the outset, while the size of the electronic items are becoming smaller and smaller, their capacities are increasing manifolds. But the manufacturing of these tiny products reveals that they contain several material inputs and metals, some of which are precious while some others are dangerous and susceptible to pollution. For example, the smart mobile phone comprises 54 elements including metals like gold, silver, copper, lithium, silicon, bromine, magnesium, and platinum, etc., which adore the phone’s chips, battery, casing and screen. Further, manufacturing of the electronic parts needs large quantities of other resources. For instance, a two kilogram weighing laptop requires 22 kilograms of chemicals, 244 kilograms of fuel, 1.5 tons of clean water and several such other items. The manufacturing companies involve thousands of sub-contractors to get raw materials who are located across a dozen countries (Pitron, 2023).

Production of the semiconductors may lead to pollution as the microprocessor industry releases several liquid, solid and gaseous wastes into the environment. Treatment of all the solid and liquid chemical wastes is a challenging task. However, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide may escape into the atmosphere. Apart from this, emission of about 50 fluorinated gases, that is, F-gases, (the HFC family) which are little known—is another pollution threat. Earlier, the HFC gases were not considered so harmful for global warming but Indian climatologist Veerabhadran Ramanathan warned as far back as 1975 that HFCs contribute to global warming. The world’s biggest producer of HFC gases, is India today. The pollution from the graphite mines is causing immense suffering to the people in those areas. Economic interests often take precedence over ethical or environmental concerns in many government decisions. Industries that generate significant revenue—whether it’s through natural resource extraction, arms manufacturing, or even exploitative labour—can be shielded from scrutiny or regulation because of the financial benefits they provide. (Pitron, 2023).

E-waste generation and management

The e-waste is inevitable in the fast changing digital world. The electronic devices like mobile phones, computers, servers, household and medical equipments, and network fibre cables, etc., could be dumped for reasons like breakages, upgrades or functional failures. The frequent upgrades to emerging technologies make the existing devices obsolete and compel the users to dump the old devices. Technological obsolescence is thus rapid in the digital world. Faster upgradations and inventions are the main reasons for digital obsolescence. The recent trend of digital manufacturing companies is rapid upgrade to attract users Another important technological shift has been Cloud technology. Moving to the cloud implies dumping of existing servers. The illegal transboundary e-waste dumping is reported occasionally in different parts of the globe despite restrictions due to ineffective controls and monitoring.

All these factors add to the e-waste problem. It was estimated that over 34 billion pieces of digital equipments weighing 223 million tonnes are under circulation on the planet (WHO, 2023). Further, it has been observed that e-waste is the fastest growing component of the total solid waste and is increasing three times faster than the world’s population (Alves, 2024). These trends undoubtedly point towards increasing e-waste generation in the future. Managing the increasing e-waste is a critical challenge today. The e-waste could be simply disposed of as municipal waste or disposed of after proper treatment through the recycling process. The disturbing aspect is disposing of e-waste without proper treatment.

If e-waste is recycled properly, valuable resources could be drawn and reused. It is here the big problem of potential pollution lies. In case, recycling is not done appropriately, there is a threat of releasing about 1000 different chemical substances including harmful neurotoxicants. As per the ASSOCHAM-EY study, the volume of e-waste in India was 2 MMTs which more than doubled to 5.2 MMTs by 2020. Today India stands as one of the top five e-waste producing countries along with China, US, Japan and Germany (Shenoy, 2019). Further, only 32.9 per cent of the e-waste was recycled in India in 2021 (Sonal, 2023). The disturbing aspect of the e-waste recycling business is that the bulk of the recycling business is done in the informal sector without following proper guidelines especially, in developing countries like India. For example, 20,000 tonnes of e-waste was handled with bare hands in Delhi by 25,000 workers (Monika and Kishore, 2010). Another problem relates to lack of effective control and monitoring by the regulating authorities and necessary technical expertise for proper disposal and recycling in both the underdeveloped and developing countries. As a result, people especially children and women are exposed to e-waste pollution. Further, this may contaminate air, soil, dust and water near the recycling sites and the communities. Burning of the electronic waste is considered as the most hazardous as it releases poisonous gases into the air. The common health effects due to improper recycling methods include premature births and stillbirths, leading to associated neuro problems, and reduced lung and respiratory function. It is observed that children and women are more vulnerable groups to these health problems.

The potential of e-waste is thus clear and demands international action. The WHO identified strategies for dealing with e-waste related pollution. Adopting and enforcing international agreements, devising and implementing national-level legislations, effective monitoring of e-waste sites, eliminating child labour, and educating and training health workers at all levels are the main steps of the WHO strategy (WHO, 2023). In India, the pollution monitoring agency Central Pollution Control Board, issued guidelines in the form of schedules 1.2 and 3 to the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2003 and Municipal Solid Waste Management Rule, 2000 in 2007. Later, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, has comprehensively revised the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016 that came into operation on April 1, 2023. The main purpose of this initiative is to manage e-waste in an environmentally safe manner. In this endeavour, all the agencies involved like manufacturers, producers, refurbishers, and recyclers have to register on a portal developed by the Central Pollution Control Board (Public Information Bureau, 2023).

Sustainable Digital Transformation-a framework

Sustainable digital transformation is a comprehensive subject consisting of three major components: sustaining the digital transformation itself through innovative technologies and business models, applying digital technologies for achieving the global sustainable development goals in various sectors and, making digitalisation environmentally sustainable. As part of the technological revolution, digitalisation is taking place in almost all the sectors of development like governance, manufacturing, business, agriculture, communication, defence, transport, energy, medicine, education, and a host of other areas. Digitalisation has contributed a lot to the growth and development of all these sectors. Similar to other technologies, digital technology naturally becomes obsolete in the context of a fast changing world and emerging needs of societies. In order to meet the emerging changes and needs, digital technology developers are already in the process of transformation through various innovations. The present competitive business environment compels the developers to strive for constant innovations in their technologies to make them relevant and sustainable in the business.

In view of the global resource constraints and negative effects of modern technologies, the concept of sustainable development was devised. Sustainable development has become the top agenda of discussions globally. The UN and its bodies have formulated global policies and guidelines for implementation by the governments at various levels across the world. Digitalisation has also been supporting the sustainable development initiatives in various sectors. For example, in the energy sector digital technologies are helping energy optimisation initiatives in the fields like manufacturing, production, agriculture and business. In the sustainable environment field also, digitalisation is helping in collecting the data, monitoring and assessing the periodic environmental changes and mapping the probable future scenarios.

The present digitalisation model is defective from an environmentally sustainable perspective. Its huge energy consumption is unsustainable in the context of the present global energy crisis. The unscientific handling of e-waste poses a threat to public health and the environment. To be more specific, the information and technology sector contributes to about 4 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions as the bulk of the present energy production is based on fossil fuels (UNEP). In this situation, the increasing energy demand by the IT sector increases the risk of a global footprint. On the energy front, it is paradoxical that digitalisation has been used in different sectors to achieve energy efficiency in their operations whereas the digital sector itself has become a major consumer of energy. In this tricky situation, there is a need for energy efficiency initiatives in the digital sector too and for developing low energy consuming devices. Further, digital agencies must also focus on using alternative energy sources like solar and wind energies.

The entire digital business environment has to undergo changes to make it sustainable. It is a welcome measure to observe that the digital sector is already responding to this need by slowly moving to energy efficiency business models. This step is beneficial for the digital agencies too to make their infrastructure cost effective and at the same time making its operations environmentally sustainable. The steps like turning off lights and equipments, adopting efficient power management settings like putting computer equipments on sleeping mode when not in use, deploying smart power strips in the office to combat energy waste, and automating repetitive tasks across the IT infrastructure to reduce the need for always- on- devices, will go a long way in making digital operations energy efficient. Another area could be upgrading to energy efficient devices like computers, monitors, printers and other peripherals which are becoming popular these days. One more measure could be adoption of server virtualisation techniques to reduce the number of physical servers, especially in data centers to serve on a single server (ION). The companies should also invest in energy-efficient storage solutions like the solid state drives that consume less power than the traditional hard disc drives and, data duplication and compression technologies to reduce data storage needs. Migrating to cloud computing is also considered as an efficient method for reducing energy consumption. Further, adopting eco-friendly cooling systems in the data centers is another energy- efficient measure. The optimisation of heat, ventilation and air conditioning systems are significant energy savers in the IT environment especially in the data centers. All these techniques and methods being advocated by experts aim to achieve energy efficiency in the digital management sector.

As already discussed, e-waste management has become an environmental and public health threat. The UN has recognised this fact and formulated policies and guidelines for scientific management of the e-waste across the countries. The governments also formulated required policy and legal framework to be adopted by the implementing agencies. The challenge however, is efficient implementation of these rules and regulations on the ground. Ultimately, only scientific recycling and waste disposal systems will work in reducing environmental and public health risks of digitalisation. The developed countries are a step forward in this respect compared to the developing countries where the administrative laxities make it difficult for strict implementation of the e-waste disposal rules and regulations.

Conclusion

The technologies discussed above in the digital world are driving an unprecedented surge in data generation and consumption. On the other hand, technologists often assert that their innovations enable cleaner and more efficient operations through energy savings. Experts in the digital economy echo these claims, emphasising the potential for increased efficiency and sustainability through technological advancement. They argue that promoting the digital economy would lead to reduced carbon emissions by low carbon technology innovations. Several events in the technological history in the world, have proved that contrary to the expectations, energy efficient measures always lead to increased demand for more fuel or energy due to increased usage. And the digital field is no exception as digital technologies and their proclaimed energy gains have always been negated by increased use of energy (Pitron, 2023).

Today, there are claims and counter claims pertaining to the environmental impacts of the ICT sector in the world. For instance, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI)----an initiative of the global digital players in the private sector predicted that the ICT industry’s carbon footprint will reach 1.25 gigatons of carbon emissions by 2030 accounting for 1.97 per cent of global emissions. At the same time, the organisation also claimed in a report called SMARTer 2020 that the ICT interventions will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 16.5 per cent (Wang et al, 2023). This is a very significant claim at this juncture. Interestingly, the global environmental monitoring institutions like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began to take these claims as true and are emphasising ICT interventions to achieve global environmental objectives. Terms like Green IT are being popularised these days in the digital sector. But some academics and independent experts criticised these claims terming them over-optimistic, representing the lobby groups like GeSI. They also cautioned the global environmental institutions and the governments not to use these claims in their policy making as the aspect of digital waste was not considered in their reports making them one sided or biased towards the ICT serving their business interests (Pitron, 2023).

Apart from these claims and counterclaims, the impacts of digitalisation on environmental pollution have yet to be fully explored by scientific studies. At present, the entire story of environmental pollution is being told by the digital institutions and their associations. One aspect is certain that digitalisation has led to more energy consumption in manufacturing of the devices, the data storage and consumption. The world’s most powerful companies like Amazon, Netflix, Oracle, Linkedin, Twitter and Abode consume coal- based global electricity in the range of 13 to 36 per cent. Further, about 30 per cent of the world’s electricity still comes from coal (Pitron, 2023). Pollution threats of e-waste recycling and unscientific disposal are yet to be explored deeply across the world. At present, this issue is mostly ignored in the context of benefits of digitalisation.

Today, digitalisation is irreversible, as it is intertwined with the development process itself. In this context, our efforts must be focussed on effective management of its negative effects especially, energy consumption and pollution issues. Innovative technologies and business models could reduce the burden on energy. On the pollution front, proper educational measures and strict implementation of the e-waste rules and regulations would mitigate the problems. As the problems of each country are different, each country should formulate its own strategies based on local conditions. Further,digitalisation should be developed in a planned and controlled manner so that its adverse effects are minimised. Ultimately, the goal should be promoting environmentally sustainable digitalisation, not negating the digitalisation itself.

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