Sustainability Matters: Environmental Action in ICT Standard Development Organizations

<p dir="ltr">Information and communication technologies (ICT) becoming ever more widespread in the world, and global warming changing the world as we know it. In the last decades, both topics have generated heated and often conflicting public discussions. A recent trend lies in connecting the dots: how to account for the ways digital technologies may impact the environment? This dissertation addresses one dimension of the intersection between the environment and ICTs. I map environmental concerns embedded in the design of ICT standards.</p><p dir="ltr">ICTs are often praised for their potential to foster environmental sustainability across different economic sectors. However, in this dissertation, I join sustainable media scholars unraveling a different perspective: the sustainability of digital technologies themselves. I focus on the underlying standards that help ICTs to work. Technical ICT standards enable the interoperability of hardware/software and the flow of information online. Although often invisible to the public, they are tangibly entangled in and with the environment. Therefore, more specifically, I cover ICT standards created purposefully to address environmental concerns. </p><p dir="ltr">This dissertation covers the standardizing efforts in the International Telecommunication Union Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), two leading standard development organizations for ICTs. I analyze whether and how these organizations address the environmental impact of the infrastructures they help to create and maintain. To do so, first, I conducted a historical study of the evolution of environmental discussions in these organizations. Second, I identified the environmental topics advanced in their standards and proposals. Third, I pinpointed the types of actors proposing the standards and related documents. Finally, I interviewed people working in the organizations as well as environmental activists to understand their perspective on environmental action through standard-making. </p><p dir="ltr">These four steps helped me identify corporate visions about sustainable ICT currently advanced in the ITU-T and the IETF. I show that these visions portrayed in the SDO documents are often rooted in the values of never-ending economic growth and the expansion of the ICT sector through efficiency gains. By looking at the two case studies, I contend that ICT standards are levers for environmental action and that standard development organizations are avenues for addressing environmental rights and striving for digital technologies that work within the planetary limits.</p>