Sure, the use of ERP systems helps to facilitate manufacturing operations, supply chain management and enterprise solutions in general. And sure, streamlining supply chains could reflect in environmental benefits.
But what about the continuous development of new technologies for electronic devices such as digital cameras, HD recorders, sound systems, etc., yielding increasingly bigger data files? Digitization requires a certain degree of ‘data mirroring’ to decrease the risk of data losses which, in turn, implies a higher storage capacity. Obviously, you don't want your life memories to get lost due to a HDD that crashes? For sure, it will happen, since it’s lifetime is smaller than yours. The business of storage capacity production (USB Drives, Hard Disks, Network Attached Storage, Data Servers, etc.) is highly influenced by the developments of new technologies for these electronic devices. You can make use of ‘Cloud Services’ (read: storage capacity somewhere else in a huge datacentre)… You can install your own home server…
I am just wondering how we will end up… Will we keep on building new power consuming datacentres with gigantic energy demanding cooling systems? Is this sustainable? The original idea of digitization from a sustainability point of view to save paper consumption in order to save biomass resources; is it relevant?
Any comment/remark/discussion is appreciated.
Conference Paper Internet of Things and the Future of Life-Cycle Assessment i...
- Badges
- Science topic