As we approach 2025, Manchester Digital is excited to share Picturing 2025 - a series of essays from our members offering insights into the tech trends and challenges ahead. Below, Aire Logic shares their thoughts on balancing sustainability and tech.
Working at a B Corp tech consultancy, sustainability in tech is always at the forefront of my mind. It can be argued that sustainability in tech began its life as a buzzword, destined to be greenwashed whilst companies planted trees and then ticked off sustainability on their list for the rest of the year.
As the planet has suffered from horrendous climate events; wildfires, earthquakes, mass flooding and polar ice caps melting the world woke up and demanded that we take action together.
The rise in public interest (and panic) about climate change has presented an opportunity for companies to truly innovate in this sector and drive change. There are positive signs that we are moving towards a more sustainable future with renewable energy, waste reduction and pioneering companies investing in this area.
The pros and cons of AI
Yet the rise in AI could be a stumbling block for sustainable technology. AI is touted as the wunderkind of the tech world and there are high hopes that it can help to tackle some of the world’s most pressing environmental emergencies. As an example AI is being used to map the destructive dredging of sand and chart emissions of methane, something historically difficult to forecast.
However there are negatives about the rise of use in AI which worries me. AI uses a LOT of water. Whilst companies are racing to advance AI and embed it into everyday life they have also significantly increased their water usage.
This water is used for cooling their data centres, AI server cooling uses a significant amount of water, with up to 9 litres of water evaporating per kWh of energy used. To write a 100 word email ChatGPT with GPT-4 uses approximately 519 milliliters of water, a worrying figure when you consider that ChatGPT receives 10 million+ queries per day.
Rising water use in these data centres should concern everyone as the world suffers from a global freshwater shortage. With companies like Google and Microsoft powering ahead with generative AI, they must focus on reversing the environmental damage they are making and heavily invest in sustainable practices. AI is already causing global resource challenges and deepening the loss of natural resources.
AI can clearly contribute to an improvement in sustainability, forecast and track air quality changes and optimise efforts to move towards more renewable energy,but its dark (and thirsty) side cannot be ignored.
Digitising the Future
Working at Aire Logic and Aire Innovate, one of the great sustainability success stories I have seen is our work with Leeds Teaching Hospital. Before they worked with Aire Logic they processed approximately 3 million pre-operative forms a month with one form equalling one sheet of A4 paper.
This equated to 7,200 reams of paper a year, with one tree equalling 16 reams of paper, Leeds Teaching Hospital are saving 450 trees a year just from digitising their pre-operative forms. When one considers the environmental impact of making the paper, printing, distributing and storing it, the environmental impacts of digitisation are astonishing - and that’s before the financial benefits are considered.
Investing in Sustainability
I was recently on a roundtable with Yorkshire Business Insider and I was really excited to hear that every company there was investing in ESG and sustainability. Steven Lloyd from Turner and Townsend told us that net zero has been a massive growth area for them, with their international clients asking for sustainability-focused outcomes.
John Pay from Evri talked us through their very ambitious target to be net zero by 2035. They have already used tech to reduce parcel carbon emissions by 20 per cent in the last year alone and they are using AI to improve doorstep courier compliance, tackle fraud and process refunds and claims.
In summary - I truly believe that we will see massive steps forward in sustainability through tech and that even making small changes such as digitisation can have massive cost and environmental savings. I think the race to the top with generative AI can cause massive environmental damage and collectively we need to hold tech companies to account to ensure that they work towards reducing the damage they are causing.
A focus on sustainability can only be a good thing and in 2025 and beyond I hope everyones eyes are opened to performative greenwashing and we can support the companies making real, positive change.
By Emma Raftery-Kenworthy, PR & Marketing Director at Aire Logic.
