ETH Zurich : Computer Science : Pervasive Computing : Distributed Systems : Education : DR HS2019

Digitalization and the Rebound Effect – Seminar HS2019

Time and place

Introduction session

Objective

The goal of the seminar is to learn about the impact of digitalization on energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental sustainability in general, with special emphasis on the subtler implications of rebound effects.

Furthermore, students will also be familiarized with reviewing scientific literature, delivering a scientifically sound presentation respecting the allocated time, and producing a scientific report.

Organization

The seminar consists of talks given by students on selected topics, followed by subsequent discussions led by the instructor. A maximum of 11 students will be admitted to the seminar. Priority will be given to Master students who have sufficient background knowledge in the topic but the seminar is generally open to Bachelor and Doctoral students as well.

Seminar attendees select a specific topic within the broader context of current research and prepare an oral presentation. As a starting point, the students are assigned 3-5 important papers in their topic but they have to collect complementary materials and compile them together. Oral presentations must be planned for 45 minutes. Each presentation will be followed by a technical discussion as well as a short feedback session on the quality/style of the presentation. Each student also has to write a short essay on the selected topic. Essays must be composed using a given template and must be of length 4-8 pages (including figures, tables, and references). The essay is due in 3 weeks after the presentation. The quality of this essay will be evaluated and considered for the final grade.

In addition to studying the selected papers only, the students should do independent literature research, and should summarize the whole topic in their presentations and essays.

Each student will have the opportunity to discuss their papers in detail with the instructor, and will meet with him one week prior to the presentation to receive preliminary feedback.

The seminar will be held in English. Presentations and reports must be in English. Attendees are required to participate in all sessions.

Templates

Grading

• the quality of the presentation;
• the quality of the essay;
• participation in discussions and feedback sessions after each presentation.

Schedule

Topics

1) How can digital systems help saving energy and carbon?

This introductory talk defines digitalization and presents societal and economic sectors in which digitalization can lead to energy savings. It further highlights several important mechanisms by which these energy savings can be brought about, and adresses the challenges in quantifying them.

Suggested starting literature:

• International Energy Agency. Digitalization & Energy, report, 2017 (chapters 1, 2, and 3)
• Global e-Sustainability Initiative. #SMARTer 2030, report, 2015
• Lorenz M. Hilty, Bernard Aebischer and Andrea E. Rizzoli. Modeling and evaluating the sustainablity of smart solutions, Environmental Modelling & Software 56, pp. 1–5, 2014
• Vlad C. Coroama and Mattias Höjer. Assessing GHG Benefits Induced by ICT Services in Practice: A Case Study and Resulting Challenges, Proceedings of ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S) 2016, pp. 29–35, 2016
• Andy Stephens and Veronika Thieme. Framework for Assessing Avoided Emissions. Accelerating innovation and disruptive low- and zero-carbon solutions. Part 2: Draft methodology for calculating avoided emissions, report, 2018



2) Rebound effects

A phenomen first noticed in energy markets, efficiency gains are often undone by rebound effects. This talk reveals the concept of rebound effects, and introduces several types of rebound. It further addresses the relevance of rebound effects in the context of digitalization.

Suggested starting literature:

• Blake Alcott. Jevons' paradox, Ecological Economics, 54 (1), pp. 9–21, 2005
• J. Daniel Khazzoom. Economic Implications of Mandated Efficiency in Standards for Household Appliances, The Energy Journal, 1 (4), pp. 21–40, 1980
• Steve Sorrell. Jevons’ Paradox revisited: The evidence for backfire from improved energy efficiency, Energy Policy, 37 (4), pp. 1456–1469, 2009
• Peter H. G. Berkhout, Jos C. Muskens and Jan W. Velthuijsen. Defining the rebound effect, Energy Policy, 28 (6–7), pp. 425–432, 2000
• Mathias Binswanger. Technological progress and sustainable development: what about the rebound effect?, Ecological Economics, 36 (1), pp. 119–132, 2001
• Miriam Börjesson Rivera, Cecilia Håkansson, Åsa Svenfelt and Göran Finnveden. Including second order effects in environmental assessments of ICT, Environmental Modelling & Software, 56, pp. 105–115, 2014
• Lorenz M. Hilty, Andreas Köhler, Rainer Zah and Thomas Ruddy. Rebound effects of progress in information technology, Poiesis & Praxis, 4 (1), pp. 19–38, 2006



3) Direct energy consumption of ICT

Even before considering rebound effects, the energy savings induced by digitalization have to be weighted against the direct energy consumption of the technologies enabling them. Before diving into individual digitalization technologies, this talk thus provides an overview of the energy consumption of information and communication technologies, addressing both today's values and expected future developments.

Suggested starting literature:

• Ward Van Heddeghem, Sofie Lambert, Bart Lannoo, Didier Colle, Mario Pickavet and Piet Demeester. Trends in worldwide ICT electricity consumption from 2007 to 2012, Computer Communications, 50, pp. 64–76, 2014
• Ralph Hintemann and Simon Hinterholzer. Energy Consumption of Data Centers Worldwide – How will the Internet become Green?, Proceedings of ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S), 2019
• Vlad C. Coroama and Lorenz M. Hilty. Assessing Internet energy intensity: A review of methods and results, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 45, pp. 63–48, 2014
• Vlad C. Coroama, Daniel Schien, Chris Preist and Lorenz M. Hilty. The Energy Intensity of the Internet: Home and Access Networks, ICT Innovations for Sustainability, pp. 137–155, 2015
• Daniel Schien, Vlad C. Coroama, Lorenz M. Hilty and Chris Preist. The Energy Intensity of the Internet: Edge and Core Networks, ICT Innovations for Sustainability, pp. 157–170, 2015
• The Shift Project. Lean ICT: Towards digital sobriety, report, 2019
• Joshua Aslan, Kieren Mayers, Jonathan G. Koomey and Chris France. Electricity Intensity of Internet Data Transmission: Untangling the Estimates, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 22 (4), pp. 785–798, 2017
• Lutz Stobbe, Marina Proske, Severin Beucker, Ralph Hintemann and Klaus-Dieter Lang. Energy Efficiency of ICT: Further Improvement through Customized Products, Proceedings of Electronics Goes Green (EGG) 2016
(longer version in German: Entwicklung des IKT-bedingten Strombedarfs in Deutschland, report, 2015



4) Teleworking

The first domain in which we look at both the possibly induced energy savings but also the potential counter-acting rebound effects, is teleworking. Teleworking has the potential to greatly reduce work commute and therefore the energy use for personal transport. There are, however, also numerous possible sources of rebound, such as the increase of non-commute trips during working days or of the number of weekend trips to compensate the activities not performed in conjunction with the work commute.

Suggested starting literature:

• H. Scott Matthews and Eric Williams. Telework Adoption and Energy Use in Building and Transport Sectors in the United States and Japan, Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 11 (1), pp. 21–30, 2005
• B. Koenig, D. Henderson, and P. L. Mohktarian. The Travel and Emissions Impacts of Telecommuting for the State of California Telecommuting Pilot Project, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 4 (1), pp. 13–32, 1996
• Christian Fuchs. The implications of new information and communication technologies for sustainability, Environment, Development and Sustainability, 10 (3), pp. 291–309, 2008
• Patricia L. Mokhtarian. A Synthetic Approach to Estimating the Impacts of Telecommuting on Travel, Urban Studies, 35 (2), pp. 215–241, 1998
• Kurt W. Roth, Todd Rhodes, and Ratcharit Ponoum. The energy and greenhouse gas emission impacts of telecommuting in the U.S., 2008 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment, pp. 1-6, 2008



5) Online shopping

The next domain in which possible energy savings are weighted against the potential rebound effects is online shopping. As compared to traditional in-store shopping, online shopping can increase energy efficiency by bulk delivery to several customers at once, instead of having each customer driving to the supermarket. On the other hand, online shopping also generates many returns (in particular for clothes) and the ease of access might lead to more consumption in general. Additionally, and particularly in urban areas, customers might have taken public transport to the shops. Substituting bulk deliveries by van or truck for several individual public transport trips might actually increase the overall energy and carbon footprint.

Suggested starting literature:

• Deepak Sivaraman, Sergio Pacca, Kimbrly Mueller and J. Lin. Comparative Energy, Environmental, and Economic Analysis of Traditional and E-commerce DVD Rental Networks, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 11 (3), pp. 77-91, 2007
• Hanne Siikavirta, Mikko Punakivi, Mikko Kärkkäinen and Lassi Linnanen. Effects of E-Commerce on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Case Study of Grocery Home Delivery in Finland, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 6 (2), pp. 83-97, 2002
• Eric Williams and T. Tagami. Energy Use in Sales and Distribution via E-Commerce and Conventional Retail: A Case Study of the Japanese Book Sector, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 6 (2), pp. 99-114, 2002
• Johan Visser, Toshinori Nemoto and Michael Browne. Home Delivery and the Impacts on Urban Freight Transport: A Review, Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences, 125, pp. 15–27, 2014
• Sally Cairns. Delivering supermarket shopping: more or less traffic?, Transport Reviews, 25 (1), pp. 51-84, 2002
• Oliver Bates, Adrian Friday et al. Transforming Last-mile Logistics: Opportunities for more Sustainable Deliveries, Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18), ACM, Paper 526, 14 pages



6) Electronic media

A further domain to look at are electronic media. Substituting electronic media for traditional one can bring energy benefits because the traditional media support (e.g., paper, CDs, DVDs) no longer need to be produced and transported. On the other hand, the ease of access to streaming media can bear the seeds for large rebound effects, which might offset the original savings.

Suggested starting literature:

• Mohammad A. Achachlouei and Åsa Moberg. Life Cycle Assessment of a Magazine, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 19 (4), 2015
Part I: Tablet Edition in Emerging and Mature States, pp. 575-589
Part II: Comparison of Print and Tablet Editions, pp. 590-606
• Vlad C. Coroama, Åsa Moberg and Lorenz M. Hilty. Dematerialization Through Electronic Media?, In: Lorenz M. Hilty and Bernard Aebischer (Eds.), ICT Innovations for Sustainability, pp. , Springer, pp. 405–421, 2015
• Arman Shehabi, Ben Walker and Eric Masanet. The energy and greenhouse-gas implications of internet video streaming in the United States, Environmental Research Letters, 9, 2014
• The Shift Project. Climate Crisis: The Unsustainable Use of Online Video, report, 2019



7) Sharing economy

The sharing economy entails the promise to potentially save large amounts of energy and resources in the production of goods. Due to their shared nature, much less goods would need to be produced than if they were each individually used. As mountains of thrown-away bicycles from failed sharing schemes testify, however, this is not necessarily so. Other 'sharing' schemes, such as AirBnb or Uber, do not in fact promote sharing but just provide an easier access to services, and might thus contribute to an increase in demand.

Suggested starting literature:

• Harald Heinrichs. Sharing Economy, Gaia, 22 (4), pp. 228-231, 2013
• Chris J. Martin. The sharing economy: A pathway to sustainability or a nightmarish form of neoliberal capitalism?, Ecological Economics, 121, pp. 149-159, 2016
• Maria J. Pouri and Lorenz M. Hilty. Conceptualizing the Digital Sharing Economy in the Context of Sustainability, Sustainability, 10 (12), 2018
• Raza Hasan and Mehdi Birgach. Critical success factors behind the sustainability of the Sharing Economy, Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (SERA), 2016.



8) Autonomous vehicles

Autonomous vehicles can bring about numerous potential traffic benefits. Autonomous taxis, for example, could considerably reduce vehicle emissions, while platooning (coordinated travel in close proximities on highways) can substantially reduce the average fuel consumption by coordinating driving speed and behavior, and by minimizing the distance between vehicles to reduce wind resistance. Finally, the emergence of autonomous vehicles could boost the market for sharing such vehicles to the detriment of private car ownership. The time spent in an autonomous vehicle, however, is likely to be more enjoyable or productive than when driving one’s self. The time can be used for socializing or work. This is likely to increase the appeal of car rides, which might lead to more frequent and longer trips. Car rides would also become more attractive as compared to other modes of transport, in particular public transport, leading to a partial substitution of the former for the latter.

Suggested starting literature:

• Jeffery B. Greenblatt and Samveg Saxena. Autonomous taxis could greatly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions of US light-duty vehicles, Nature Climate Change 5, pp. 860–863, 2015
• Austin Brown, Jeffrey Gonder and Brittany Repac. An Analysis of Possible Energy Impacts of Automated Vehicles, In: Gereon Meyer and Sven Beiker (Eds.), Road Vehicle Automation, pp. 137–153, Springer, 2014.
• Lawrence D. Burns. A vision of our transport future, Nature 497, pp. 181-182, 2013
• Joschka Bischoff and Michal Maciewski. Simulation of City-wide Replacement of Private Cars with Autonomous Taxis in Berlin, Procedia Computer Science, 83, pp. 237–244, 2016
• Corey D. Harper, Chris T. Hendrickson, Sonia Mangones and Constantine Samaras. Estimating potential increases in travel with autonomous vehicles for the non-driving, elderly and people with travel-restrictive medical conditions, Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 72 (1), pp. 1-9, 2016
• Christina Pakusch, Gunnar Stevens, Alexander Boden and Paul Bossauer. Unintended Effects of Autonomous Driving: A Study on Mobility Preferences in the Future, Sustainability, 10 (7), 2018



9) Applications with little or no rebound

In all domains so far, digitalization had the potential to induce energy and resource savings, but there the possibility of rebound effects was looming over each of them. This talk explores application domains that might have little or no rebound at all. Is there a pattern to them?

Suggested starting literature:

• Vlad C. Coroama, Lorenz M. Hilty and Martin Birtel. Effects of Internet-based multiple-site conferences on greenhouse gas emissions, Telematics & Informatics, 29 (4), pp. 362-374, 2012
• Verena Tiefenbeck, Lorenz Goette, Kathrin Degen, Vojkan Tasic, Elgar Fleisch, Rafael Lalive and Thorsten Staake. Overcoming Salience Bias: How Real-Time Feedback Fosters Resource Conservation, Management Science, 64 (3), pp. 1458-1476, 2018
• Lorenz M. Hilty. Why energy efficiency is not sufficient – some remarks on "Green by IT", Proceedings of the 26th Environmental Informatics Conference (EnviroInfo), pp. 13-20, 2012
• Masahito Takahashi and Hiroshi Asano. Japanese Vending Machine and Display Cooler Energy Use Affected by Principal-Agent Problem, In: Quantifying the Effects of Market Failures in the End-Use of Energy, pp. 108–119, International Energy Agency, 2006
• Joseph C. von Fischer et al. Rapid, Vehicle-Based Identification of Location and Magnitude of Urban Natural Gas Pipeline Leaks, Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 51, no. 7, pp. 4091-4099, 2017



10) New technologies, affluence, sufficiency

Digitalization is not the first general-purpose technology to profoundly change societies and economies; printed paper, coal and electricity are examples for previous such technologies. Are there any lessons to be learned from the evolution of these previous general-purpose tehcnologies? Did their abundance continue indefinitely due to the macroeconomic rebound effects they trigerred? Or was there a peak, a moment of sufficiency?

Suggested starting literature:

• Astrid Kander, Paolo Malanima, and Paul Warde. Power to the People: Energy in Europe over the Last Five Centuries, Princeton University Press, 2013
• Nathaniel C. Horner, Arman Shehabi and Inês L Azevedo. Known unknowns: indirect energy effects of information and communication technology, Environmental Research Letters, 11, 2016
• Lauri Hetemäki, Riitta Hänninen and Alexander Moiseyev. Markets and Market Forces for Pulp and Paper Products, In: Eric Hansen, Rajat Panwar, Richard Vlosky (Eds.), The Global Forest Sector – Changes, Practices, and Prospects, pp. 99–127, CRC Press, 2013



11) Is the rebound of digitalization unavoidable?

Previous presentations introduced several domains in which rebound effects seem to offset any efficiency gains brought about by digital technologies. We have also witnessed some domains with little or no rebound and considered the fate of other general-purpose tehcnologies along humankind's history. Given all these prerequisites, the last presentation will reflect both whether unchecked rebound effects are ultimately unescapable, but also which policy measures might be effective in mitigating them.

Suggested starting literature:

• Tilman Santarius, Hans Jakob Walnum and Carlo Aall. From Unidisciplinary to Multidisciplinary Rebound Research: Lessons Learned for Comprehensive Climate and Energy Policies, Frontiers in Energy Research, 2018
• Edgar G. Hertwich. Consumption and the Rebound Effect: An Industrial Ecology Perspective, Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9 (1-2), pp. 85–98, 2004
• Kenneth Gillingham, Matthew J. Kotchen, David S. Rapson and Gernot Wagner. The rebound effect is overplayed, Nature 493, pp. 475-476, 2013
• David Font Vivanco, René Kemp, Ester van der Voet. How to deal with the rebound effect? A policy-oriented approach, Energy Policy 94, pp. 114-125, 2016
• Jack H. Townsend and Vlad C. Coroama. Digital Acceleration of Sustainability Transition: The Paradox of Push Impacts, Sustainability 10 (8), 2016



Contact

For further information please contact Vlad Coroama.