The hidden carbon cost of business tech: Beyond AI hype, what else are we overlooking?
Read the full article by Al Kingsley MBE at Tech for Good here.
Across corporate sustainability strategies, there’s a sharp focus on big-ticket items - cutting travel emissions, greening buildings, reducing packaging - but the carbon footprint of everyday digital infrastructure often goes unremarked. While AI’s massive energy demands have rightly raised alarms, beneath the spotlight lies a quieter, persistent culprit: the basic technology underpinning modern office life. Idle laptops, always-on servers, neglected cloud storage, and dated IT procurement practices collectively consume vast quantities of energy, day in and day out, and their aggregate emissions are far from trivial.
A device left in sleep mode may seem harmless individually, but magnified across hundreds or thousands, and multiplied by 365, the energy usage becomes substantial. Similarly, underutilised cloud services drive unnecessary data‑center load, while physical servers hum constantly, irrespective of demand.
The International Energy Agency estimates that data centers already consume about 1–1.5% of global electricity - a figure that is tracking upward, with AI workloads poised to accelerate growth. Yet most businesses' emissions don’t stem from hyperscale AI farms, but from the cumulative inefficiencies scattered across their devices, servers, and digital services. These “silent emissions” are challenging to spot because digital tools feel weightless and virtual - but their energy use is concrete and lasting.
Tackling this often means implementing low‑tech yet impactful measures. It starts with a comprehensive IT audit: surveying hardware, software, subscriptions, virtual machines, cloud usage, and storage systems to identify underused or redundant assets. Following that, organizations can encourage staff to power down devices at day’s end, deploy hibernation settings, and leverage remote monitoring tools that automate shutdowns when machines are idle. For cloud infrastructure, the advice is similar: monitor workloads, retire unused VMs, compress and archive older data, delete duplicate files - actions that reduce not only emissions but also costs.
Even travel linked to tech support can be a hidden drain. Many IT teams still respond to problems onsite - even for remote users. Adoption of remote‑support tools can cut emissions tied to travel, and improve response times . Thoughtful infrastructure modernization also matters: choosing energy-efficient devices, repairing instead of replacing, disposing responsibly through certified e‑waste recycling, and integrating circular‑economy principles into procurement decisions.
Sustainability can be embedded into every phase of the IT lifecycle. Buying tech now means weighing vendor environmental credentials - energy-efficiency certification, use of recycled materials, ethics of sourcing . And companies must treat IT as more than an operational necessity; it must be included in emissions‑reporting frameworks. Tracking energy use across devices, servers, and cloud systems makes IT emissions visible - and subject to scrutiny in ESG disclosures .
In essence, the article urges a shift from viewing digital technology as inherently clean to seeing it as part of the carbon equation - and a space ripe for meaningful reductions. By adopting a routine of auditing, powering down, rightsizing, remote supporting, equipment lifecycle management, sustainable procurement, and robust reporting, businesses can fold digital infrastructure into their broader net‑zero goals. This “sustainable digital practice” reframes IT from being only an enabler of greener ways of working to becoming itself a lever for reducing emissions. Only by recognizing and managing these everyday carbon drains can companies ensure their digital transformation aligns with true sustainability.