Chasing Carbon: The Elusive Environmental Footprint of Computing

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the environmental impact of computing, revealing that despite efficiency improvements, overall carbon emissions continue to grow mainly due to hardware manufacturing and infrastructure, and suggests future mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It quantifies the environmental effects of computing, highlighting the dominant role of manufacturing and infrastructure emissions over operational energy use.

Findings

Operational energy emissions are decreasing due to efficiency improvements.

Hardware manufacturing and infrastructure are the main sources of carbon emissions.

Overall computing-related carbon footprint continues to grow despite efficiency gains.

Abstract

Given recent algorithm, software, and hardware innovation, computing has enabled a plethora of new applications. As computing becomes increasingly ubiquitous, however, so does its environmental impact. This paper brings the issue to the attention of computer-systems researchers. Our analysis, built on industry-reported characterization, quantifies the environmental effects of computing in terms of carbon emissions. Broadly, carbon emissions have two sources: operational energy consumption, and hardware manufacturing and infrastructure. Although carbon emissions from the former are decreasing thanks to algorithmic, software, and hardware innovations that boost performance and power efficiency, the overall carbon footprint of computer systems continues to grow. This work quantifies the carbon output of computer systems to show that most emissions related to modern mobile and data-center equipment come from hardware manufacturing and infrastructure. We therefore outline future directions for minimizing the environmental impact of computing systems.