A month ago, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt published a blog post about how "Google is committed to reducing our own emissions and using technology to help everyone make sustainable choices."
With an impressive goal of net-zero emissions by 2030, and an industry lead in buying renewable energy offsets, Brandt had plenty on which to base an honest conclusion that the company's "aim is to make every day more sustainable" and that Google is "more motivated than ever to do our part to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future for all." Other Big Tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, have similar expressions of sincerity about addressing the climate crisis.
Unfortunately, all of those token efforts and feel-good PR is absolutely swamped by the emissions inherent to their toxic business model.
A new report by human rights lawyer Susie Alegre "details how Big Tech companies are systematically exacerbating the climate crisis by driving emissions, driving consumerism, driving division and driving out democracy," according to the press release.
We've spent plenty of time here talking about the second two issues. Digital algorithms written to maximize engagement are "driving division," giving new life to climate disinformation while also "driving out democracy" as "big Tech's lobbying power now outstrips the oil and gas sector" while the data from social media "is being harnessed by political campaigns in ways that pose a serious threat to the climate agenda," Alegre writes in the report.
Of course, "Big Tech did not invent climate denial" or extremist views. "But through use of algorithms that profile and target individual users, Big Tech is turbocharging and profiting from climate harms." The efforts to deny, distract and delay climate solutions "become so damaging when they harness Big Tech's business model to spread and amplify."
And it's the discussion and distillation of that business model that Alegre said in a statement that "should serve as a wake-up call to the climate movement," because "Big Tech billionaires are the oil barons of the 21st century and their impact on climate change is no less destructive."
How? Because companies like Google, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Twitter and TikTok make their millions and billions of dollars off of selling user data to advertisers. (Remember: If it's free, you're the product.) Not only is all that computational power expensive in terms of energy, but its even-bigger impact is from its use.
For starters, a 2016 estimate of online ad energy consumption suggested that "1% of total energy consumption on this planet is used just to serve online ads." And since then, the report notes, "global ad spend has increased by 258%." Which means that all those annoying ads cluttering up your feed are actually responsible for as much climate pollution as the global aviation industry (2% of global emissions).
But it gets worse. Because behind those eye-scratching ads is a complicated and extensive Real-time bidding (RTB) process, where advertisers bid on your particular eyeballs, based on the reams of data collected from your browser and email and texts and voice commands and smartphone and smart watch and smart car and smart TV and smart fridge and smart thermostat... "The machinery behind this system," Alegre writes, "has a rapacious appetite for energy: 178 trillion RTB transactions each year in the US and Europe alone are processed through data centres that use an estimated 200 terawatt hours each year – more than the entire national energy consumption of a medium sized country."
And it gets worse. Because it turns out this type of advertising is particularly wasteful. "In any single RTB auction, only one bid ultimately leads to an advert, but the trillions of unsuccessful bids still surge around global data centres burning energy and heating the planet for no reason at all."
And. It. Gets. Worse! Because not only are all those wasted bids eating energy for nothing, the ones that do land are, "to a large degree," Alegre writes in summary of Dr Augustin Fou's findings, "enabling nothing but large-scale fraud." But what's $40 billion dollars between Facebook friends?
Surely that's as bad as it gets, right?
Wrong! It GETS EVEN WORSE!
Because there is still the impact of the ads that are seen, and do actually convince someone to buy something. And while "its precise impact is hard to know," Alegre points to a recent calculation from Purpose Disruptors that the advertising industry "added an extra 32% to the annual carbon footprint of every single person in the UK in 2022 through the greenhouse gas emissions that result from the uplift in sales generated by advertising."
Between Big Tech's emboldening and amplification of climate deniers and election deniers, its energy consumption, and its surveillance advertising business model selling people crap they don't need, the report concludes that "Big Tech’s toxic business model presents a systemic digital roadblock to effective climate action. Climate campaigners cannot afford to look away."
We're inclined to agree, though we may need to see some pop-up ads to really be sold on the idea!