greening it

While ICTs can help the environment, they can also be harmful. APC’s GreeningIT project takes a look at the green and not so green side of ICTs to find out how they can be used more sustainably by civil society, governments, service providers and users in general.

There is a lack of awareness in Mexico of the environmental harm caused by the present models of production, consumption and disposal of electronic waste. However, there is also a lack of awareness of the positive role that ICT can play in mitigating climate change.

According to the GISWatch 2010 report, electronics is the fastest growing sector in India and are purchased by about 52 million people. From 1993 to 2000 the number of PCs owned by Indians grew 604% and one can only imagine how many computers have been bought since then.

Country baseline studies from Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Egypt, India and Mexico look at the rising issue of e-waste and the policy environment around it, while a comparative report highlights the main points from the country studies.

When the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was approved in Costa Rica in 2008, the telecommunications sector – previously a state monopoly – opened itself to the liberal economic market. This study looks at the different initiatives, policies and actors involved in environmental stability from the telecommunications sector and focuses on climate change and e-waste manage...

In India, the ICT boom in recent years has greatly increased the presence of new dangerous and toxic waste in the environment but no official policies have been created to deal with the informal disposal of e-waste in the country. This study addresses the need for a consolidated study in India of any sorts to measure the policy trends in relation to environmental sustainability, climate change ...

Mexico has one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems, and is therefore also very vulnerable to climate change. This report identifies in what ways the use of ICTs has been proposed in public policies as a response to climate change. It also points out convergence between the digital and climate agenda, and offers a deeper reflection and analysis on the issue.

Bangladesh, like many countries, is particularly vulnerable to climate change. This new report by Partha Sarker and Munir Hasan indicates that information and communications technologies (ICTs) and environmental sustainability issues are still not on Bangladeshi policy makers’ agendas.