
Smartphones generate almost twice as much CO2 data centers
Smartphones, printers, etc. generate almost twice as much CO2 as data centers

The operation of data centers, the production of end devices for employees or the operation of software (as-a-service) in Germany accounts for up to 17 megatons of CO2e (CO2 equivalent gases) in 2021, which is around half of the total emissions of Ireland corresponds.
These are the results of the study “The green IT revolution: A blueprint for CIOs to combat climate change” by McKinsey & Company, for which the CO2 emissions of corporate IT were examined and cost-effective but highly effective alternatives were identified to reduce CO2 emissions. to reduce emissions.
“Companies and governments seeking to combat climate change often place hope and focus on new technologies to reduce carbon emissions. However, the company's IT is usually not taken into account. There should be more focus on this area.”
Gérard Richter, Head of McKinsey Digital in Germany and Senior Partner in McKinsey's Frankfurt office.
The largest CO2 emitter within the IT function is not the on-site data centers, but rather the manufacture and operation of all employee devices such as laptops, tablets, smartphones and printers.
These end-user devices generate 1.5 to 2 times more CO2 than data centers worldwide.
This is primarily due to the fact that the end devices are replaced much more often and are available in greater numbers than the server hardware and therefore the CO2 emissions from production are more significant. Smartphones have an average renewal cycle of two years, laptops four years and printers five years. In contrast, servers are replaced on average every five years.

The communications, media and services sectors contribute the largest share of technology-related Scope 2 and Scope 3 GHG emissions compared to other sectors. Globally, the IT sector emitted 80-85 megatons of CO2e last year - a record figure. Overall, corporate IT in the service sector (the analysis includes the areas of media and communication, banking and insurance) is now responsible for 35-45% of the total Scope 2 emissions in the service sector in 2021.
The study focuses on the analysis of defensive technology approaches. These include, among other things, emissions from electricity consumption for the company's own operations, e.g. B. data centers and employee endpoints (referred to as Scope 2 activities under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol), and the indirect emissions from all expenditure of the IT function, i.e. mainly from the purchase of goods and services for IT (known as Scope 3 ).
The biggest carbon emitters are employee devices
About three-quarters of consumer device CO2 emissions come from manufacturing, upstream transportation and disposal. “We've found that when many CIOs think about going green, they think about investments required to replace equipment or upgrade IT assets. “However, our analysis clearly shows that CIOs can achieve significant benefits in climate protection even without major investments – and in some cases even save money,” says Gerrit Becker, associate partner from McKinsey’s Frankfurt office and one of the study’s authors.
Overall, for example, 50-60% of emissions related to end devices can be addressed by rethinking procurement by using CO2e emissions as a third criterion alongside performance and costs, e.g. B. by purchasing more environmentally friendly devices from refurbished devices, from companies with a high recycled content, or devices with a longer lifespan.
Moving to the cloud is the best option
Optimizing Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) levels is expensive and results in only limited reductions in carbon emissions. The PUE value indicates how effectively the supplied energy is consumed in relation to the actual computing power - the lower the value, the more efficiently the data center works. Even if a company doubled its on-premises data center modernization spending to reduce PUE, it would only reduce carbon emissions by 15-20%. Structural improvements in data centers and an optimized layout can help, but the impact is small and many companies have already implemented them. More demanding measures, such as relocating data centers to cooler locations or investing in new cooling technology, are often disproportionately expensive and therefore often uneconomical.
The easy approach is to move workloads to the cloud or to “co-location” providers who are making significant investments to become even more environmentally friendly. You buy green energy yourself and invest in highly efficient data centers with a PUE value of 1.10 or less. For comparison: The average PUE value of a data center at the company location (on-premise) is 1.57. “We estimate that companies that only want to achieve a PUE value of 1.3 for their data centers would have to invest on average almost 250% more than they currently spend on their data centers,” explains Gerrit Becker.
With a thoughtful shift to the cloud and its optimized use, companies could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from their data centers by over 55%, or approximately 40 million tons of CO2e worldwide, equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions of Switzerland.
Three concrete areas of action for CIOs
The study authors also define specific fields of action:
- Change in procurement strategies,
- Introduction of green measurement systems in effective places, such as: B. more precise tracking of the number of devices purchased and used, their current useful life and the ratio of devices per user and
- Establishing a green ROI metric for technology investments. Sophisticated models include calculations of emissions over the entire life cycle, such as production, transport and disposal.
Download the full study results .
Source: McKinsey & Company
Related to the topic: Does more CO₂ make the earth greener and better?
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