Many tech companies are taking massive steps to reduce their carbon footprints and negative environmental impacts.
Apple is lauded by Greenpeace as the world's most environmentally-friendly tech company because its data centres are 100% powered by renewable energy, and Facebook and Google are following in its footsteps, each deriving close to half their data centre power from clean electricity.
IBM issued its first policy on environmental affairs way back in 1967; Dell claims it is continuously improving the energy efficiency of its devices and works to optimise the recyclability of its products; and Cisco reports a company-wide solar capacity of more than 1.7 megawatts. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what ICT companies are doing to address their environmental impacts.
Yet, while tech companies are investing in renewable energy, optimising recycling and working to reduce hazardous substances in their devices and manufacturing processes, I have seen precious little reflection of this professed environmental concern in my (short) time attending some of these companies' events and interacting with their executives.
Here are some of my environmental facepalm moments during these interactions:
1. Frequent flyers
My first question for tech companies is why, in an age of rapid communication innovations in the form of social media and unified communications systems, the act of frequently flying executives around the world for conferences is so unquestioned. Flights generate around 100g-260g carbon emissions per passenger kilometre, after all. And the numerical and geographic reach of an event could be increased by co-ordinating it via video-chat at a number of smaller, satellite locations.
2. Superfluous merchandise
Another environmental facepalm is the thoughtless showering of event attendees with superfluous merchandise they have no real use for: lanyards and laminated nametags, branded document-holders, and glossy information leaflets are among the numerous pieces of event paraphernalia that cannot be easily re-purposed, re-used, or even used enough in the first place to justify their production. (At the Cisco One Africa Partner Summit, I received a leather pen holster, of all things. Why do I need a holster for my pen, and why does it have to be leather?)
3. Printer-happy
Members of the press are, in a seemingly frantic attempt to cover all bases, most often given flashdrives with documents on them (this is fine: flashdrives have a use period of years) as well as plastic folders loaded with single-sided printed documents.
4. Carnivorous much
Another elephant - or, rather, bull - in the room is the excessive consumption of meat at tech events.
The UN in 2010 issued a report showing that a global shift towards a plant-based diet is vital in avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, as well as fuel poverty and hunger crises. Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said biomass and crops for animals cause as much environmental damage as burning fossil fuels.
I have seen precious little reflection of this professed environmental concern in my (short) time attending some of these companies' events and interacting with their executives.
Yet the findings of this and a multitude of other studies of the environmental damage caused by livestock farming seem to fall on deaf ears, as most tech events make little or no effort to provide guests with vegetarian (I won't even deign to mention vegan) meal options. Specific examples of this include the Dell Solutions Tour and, most ironically, the opening of the Climate Innovation Centre in Pretoria earlier this year.
ICT companies have taken some large and necessary steps to combat climate change, but this environmental mindset is not reflected in the tech sphere's broader corporate culture. It is difficult to view a company's environmental ethos as sincere when their representatives are not thinking holistically about the part they can play on local and individual levels.
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