Paper for the 8th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 29 June – 2 July 2009.
Integration of ICT in everyday life – exploration of transition processes in an environmental perspective
Preliminary reflections
Inge Røpke
Dep. of Management Engineering
Technical University of Denmark
Produktionstorvet, Building 424
2800 Kgs. Lyngby
Denmark
Phone: +45 45256009
Email:
Abstract
Presently, one of the fastest growing fields of consumption is the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The integration of ICT in social practices is part of wide-ranging transition processes constructing new ‘normal standards’ in everyday life, and these changes have large environmental impacts. The paper explores the ongoing processes in order to discuss whether they can be managed so as to better integrate environmental considerations.
Background
The point of departure for this paper is a study on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Danish households. The study emerged from the field of consumption and environment and was motivated by two observations. First, the environmental impacts of consumption are often considered in relation to selected symbolic actions where consumers choose between more or less environmentally friendly options. Although the range of “green” practices is extended over time, they still tend to constitute a minor part of the environmental impact related to consumption. Much environmentally costly consumption is related to ordinary and routinized practices that are taken for granted and seldom considered in an environmental perspective by neither consumers, nor politicians (Christensen et al., 2007; Shove, 2003). In contrast to this, the idea of the study was to take an interest in the gradual and long-term changes of daily life and to study the social construction of what is taken to be just the normal standard that most people can expect to achieve. Second, environmental studies tend to focus on the parts of consumption which are most problematic in an environmental perspective here and now. This calls for studies on food (e.g. meat), transport and housing (heating, cooling, white goods), while there is little attention to potential new threats to environment. The idea of the study was to assess whether new problems are constructed behind our backs while we are dealing with the old problems.
Presently, one of the fastest growing fields of consumption is the use of ICT. Mobile phones and computers are adopted by all age groups, analogue equipment is replaced by digital equipment, and microprocessors are integrated in many other categories of consumer goods. The widespread adoption of ICT equipment can be seen as an element in constructing a new ‘normality’ in everyday life: The expectations and conventions regarding a normal home’s necessary ‘infrastructure’ and the ordinary gear for a normal way of life are changing. These changes have large environmental impacts. For instance, household electricity consumption increases, and so does the indirect energy consumption related to the production of ICT-equipment and to the running of the ICT-infrastructure (Røpke et al., 2008b). Other problems relate to the use of rare minerals, brominated flame retardants and the handling of electronic waste.
In the following I will first report on the results of this study and then argue that the integration of ICT in everyday life can be interpreted as part of a wider transition process. Furthermore, I will discuss how this transition process relates to the perspective for a sustainability transition.
ICT use in Danish households
The empirical data for the project were collected in 2007-8 through qualitative interviews with 17 adult informants, all having long experience with the use of ICT and competence to take up new applications. In addition 11 shorter telephone interviews were carried out with other adult informants. Few of the informants are ICT experts, but as they are a little ahead of the average users with regard to use patterns, their activities may indicate emerging trends. Before the in-depth interview, informants filled in two forms, one covering all ICT equipment in the household (divided into 40 types), and the other covering the use of computer and internet in relation to 48 activities organized into 10 groups.
Theoretically, the project is inspired by the practice theory perspective which ascertains that people in their everyday life are engaged in practices – in doings – they are cooking, eating, sleeping, taking care of their children, and playing football (Reckwitz, 2002). Practices are meaningful to people, and if asked about their everyday life, they will usually describe the practices they are involved in. The consumption, including the use of ICT, comes in as an aspect of practices: to perform a practice it is, generally, necessary to use various material artefacts such as equipment, tools, materials, and infrastructures (Warde, 2005; Shove et al., 2007; Røpke, 2009). From an environmental perspective, it is worth noting that the use of artefacts seldom makes people think of themselves as users of resources in their daily doings. People are, first of all, practitioners who indirectly, through their performance of various practices, draw on resources.
Summing up the findings regarding the use of ICT, three observations stand out (Jensen et al., 2009; Røpke et al., 2008a). First of all, the pervasiveness of ICT: ICTs have become integrated in a wide range of the informants’ everyday practices. Although ICTs like the computer and the mobile phone were introduced in relation to a limited number of practices – such as playing games, word-processing and communicating – they are no longer seen as dedicated to particular activities. Rather, they have become part of almost any practice. This indicates that the interpretive flexibility of these “new ICTs” is much wider than the flexibility of the “old ICTs”, which tended to be integrated in practices defined by the technology itself: phoning, listening to the radio and watching television. In particular, the home computer and the internet constitute a general infrastructure that can be integrated in a wide variety of practices. ICTs support the universal activities of communication, search for information and shopping, which are all integrated aspects of almost all practices in modern societies. Thus ICTs are integrated in work and education (teleworking, distance learning, home office), reproductive work (shopping, banking, public services, health, security, child care, cooking, do-it-yourself), leisure (social communication, entertainment, games, creative activities, documentation, hobbies, gambling, sex), and civil society (organizations, politics).
Second, the diversification of practices: The integration of new ICTs in everyday practices codevelops with a diversification of these practices. For instance, the practice of communicating with relatives and friends is diversified into a large and varied number of sub-practices, using different kinds of ICT equipment, software and services. Third, user creativity: The use of ICTs calls for much user creativity when people engage in testing the new technologies and in developing new applications.
Implications for energy consumption
There are many different environmental problems related to the use of ICT, but I concentrate here on the implications for energy consumption as a core example. The pervasive integration of ICT in everyday practices has led to increases in domestic electricity consumption, offsetting the energy savings attained, for instance, in relation to white goods (IEA, 2009). The increases follow from the increasing number of computers (everybody needs his or her own; many have more than one), increased use time (it is not practical to turn off the computer), and the acqusition of much specialized equipment for various practices, including more mobile devices. The developments related to television have also contributed to increased electricity consumption (Crosbie, 2008).
In addition to the direct electricity consumption in households, the domestic use of ICT gives rise to increasing indirect energy consumption, i.e. the upstream energy use related to the manufacture of ICT-equipment and the energy used for running related infrastructure, e.g. the internet. Summing up a survey of the sparse literature on the indirect energy consumption related to ICT, Willum concludes: “When 1 kWh is consumed in the residence 1 kWh is consumed to manufacture, transport and dispose of the hardware and ½ kWh is consumed to run the Internet and the applied ICT infrastructure outside the residence” (Willum, 2008).
On the other hand, the increasing energy consumption related to household use of ICT may be counteracted by derived energy impacts. For instance, the potential for saving energy for transport in relation to teleshopping and teleworking has been stressed, but the studies of derived energy impacts tend to be inconclusive.
The changing practices which presently can be observed at the micro level may be considered as parts of the unfolding history of household electrification. The present changes add a qualitatively new aspect to electrification and may constitute a new round of electrification. The history of household electrification may be seen as a story about the use of electricity for ever more purposes, where new rounds of electrification have emerged in relation to new basic functions rooted in technological breakthroughs. In the first round the use of electricity for lighting was dominant, in the second round the basic functions were power and heating/cooling applied in a variety of devices, and in the present third round data-processing emerges as an increasingly important basic function (Røpke et al., 2009). Figure 1 illustrates the changing composition of electricity consumption in Danish households over time.
Figure 1
The distribution of household electricity consumption among final uses
in Denmark 1946-2006
The dynamics behind household ICT use
The processes behind the increasing use of ICT in households are extremely complex. As a way to describe these processes one may start by listing what practitioners meet when they transform their practices using ICT:
· Supply of devices and related software, a quick pace in the provision of new generations of equipment
· Supply of services and contents, generated by private companies, the public sector, civil society organizations and by users themselves
· Infrastructure: internet and other communication and broadcasting networks. Several “pipes to the home” are offered as well as various kinds of mobile access
· Phasing out of old methods and devices, forcing the laggards to comply
· Pricing policies and advertising campaigns
· New institutions allowing new methods of payment
· Problems of compatibility, safety and security
· Inspiration from the workplace regarding new equipment and services
· Offering of education and training in the use of ICT
· Demands from the school and from the labour market
· A broad array of social discourses concerning issues such as the digital divide, concerns for safety and security (paedophilia, credit card protection, privacy, addiction), surveillance, environmental concerns (standby, energy labelling, e-waste).
Practitioners transform their practices in an interplay between, on the one hand, the considerations relating to particular practices, and on the other hand, the new opportunities offered as well as the social pressures calling for change. The changes do not only relate to practices where the new devices and services play an obvious role like keeping in touch with relatives and friends, finding entertainment and receiving the news, but influence almost all practices.
Now, what lies behind the opportunities and pressures that practitioners meet? At a basic level the transformations are based on the classic interplay between the push and pull of technology and markets. Research and development provide new technological options – and the choice of options to explore are influenced by commercial potentials and opportunities. Which devices, programmes and services succeed in finding a market depend on where the money is: who have the ability to pay? For years liberal policies in many countries have shifted effective demand from the public sector to affluent and middle class consumers who have integrated ICT based on their private concerns. Simultaneously, the public sector has played an important role as promoter of the use of ICT, informed by the idea of “the competitive state”: in the competitive race between nations it is seen as decisive both that producers implement ICT and that users embrace and become familiar with ICT.
In between these basic forces of capitalism and rivalry between nation states on the one hand and user activities on the other, a wide range of institutions, mechanisms, considerations etc. influences the actual shaping of how ICTs are integrated and how everyday life is transformed. The ICT-related markets and competition are very complex, involving several layers of infrastructure, global supply chains, struggles between hardware producers, service providers and content providers, the search for new business models, conflicts over standardization, and a high degree of public intervention. Government influences the development in many ways: through regulation of competition (monopolies, copyright, patents, auctions) and products (standards, safety, environmental regulation), provision of public services and communication between citizens and public administration using ICT (health services, tax system, libraries, availability of maps and church registers), organization of education, support through tax exemptions and subsidies, the establishment of institutions related to payments and digital signature, protection of consumers and children, regulation of privacy, prevention of terror, and so on.
These aspects and many more influence the integration of ICT in everyday life – as well as the related environmental impacts. How can these processes be seen in a transition perspective?
Household ICT use in a transition perspective
When do transformation processes qualify as involving a “transition”? Probably, when they involve sufficiently radical social or socio-technical changes. In the case of ICT, the potential for transforming everyday life is radical – comparable to the establishment of the car society, or maybe even more radical. The changes may be seen as part of a broader transformation towards what is sometimes characterized as the information society, the communication society or, more recently, the broadband society – involving also radical transformations of production processes.
The shaping of the broadband society may be seen in a coevolutionary perspective, as illustrated in Figure 2 (next page). For instance, the development is made possible by the disastrous conditions at some of the commodity frontiers where important minerals are provided, and by the low wages earned in the sweatshops of poor countries where much electronic equipment is produced. At the other end of the scale, income increases for the affluent and middle classes provide a market for entertainment and gadgets. In many industrialized countries, demographic changes towards an increasing share of elderly people combined with the increasing problems of funding the welfare state create a market for labour-saving technologies for health and care. The organization of the provision is influenced by public regulation, based on the rationales of competitive conditions and new public management. These are just a few of the many aspects influencing the shaping of the broadband society.