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#51 Exploring the digital revolution paradox from a UN perspective with Paz Pena and Pablo José Gamez Cersosimo

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It’s a 252 pages report with the foreword of António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, talking about digitalization and sustainability. And, for once, it’s not another report from the UN stating “let’s digitize everything to boost sustainability”. Quite the contrary as it states a “unequal ecological exchange between developed and developing countries regarding digitization”.
To discuss this “scientific report based on an ethical approach” as he described it, we welcome one of its contributors, Pablo José Gamez Cersosimo, based in the Netherlands. Another contributor, Paz Pena Ochoa, based in Chile, joined us to share her unique perspective on Latin America. Together they shared great insights about:

🗺️ Colonialism and Digitalization

🪨 Geopolitical Importance of Critical Minerals

💧 Water Footprint of Digitalization

⚒️ Water Usage and Mining in Chile

🔎 The Digital Divide: A Growing Gap

🇺🇳 The Role of the UN in Digital Sustainability

And much more!

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Pablo’s and Paz’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

Transcript (auto-generated)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (00:00)

our digital world is literally liquids. It is the water that makes virtuality possible. That digital light is as blue as the fresh water that make it possible.

Gaël Duez (00:19)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green.io. I'm Gaël Duez and in this podcast we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. This episode is the first of 2025. And being released on January 30th, I can still wish you a happy new year, full of positive impacts. I hope you will find many occasions in 2025 for using technology responsibly, in order to maintain our world livable and our societies just inclusive and at peace.

Full disclosure, I am sorry if I couldn't release this first episode of the year sooner, but January was a bit rough both on professional and personal level. Fortunately, everything is getting back on track, including your bi-monthly podcast. And something that is still on track is accessibility and transparent information remaining in the DNA of Green.io, so all the references mentioned in this episode as well as the full transcript are in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website, greenio.tech.

Gaël Duez (01:53)

it's a 252 pages report with the foreword of Antonio Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, talking about digitalization and sustainability. And for once, it's not another report from the UN stating, let's digitize everything to boost sustainability. Quite the contrary, the report highlights the growing environmental impact of the digital economy and underscores the urgent need for environmentally sustainable and inclusive digitalization strategies. Quite a change. To discuss their insights and their implications, I am delighted to have with me two of its contributors. Pablo Jose Gámez-Certrozimo, based in the Netherlands, and Paz Pena Ochoa based in Chile. So yes, another 3 time zones Paz has dedicated more than 15 years to studying the intersection between technologies, social justice and gender. She has spent the last 5 years researching the socio-environmental impacts of digital technologies in Latin America, creating in 2021 the Latin American Institute of Terraforming. And in 2023, she published a summary of that research in the book Technologies for a Burning Planet, which is in Spanish, but I won't try to say it in Spanish, but you will have the link as usual in the show notes. And by the way, this book also made a great contribution to the branch magazine of Climate Action Tech. Pablo is an external researcher for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, as well as a coach and a scientific journalist. His research includes the publication of Depreda... I shouldn't say it in Spanish as well, but I'm going to try. His research includes the publication of Depredadores Digitales 2021, which is a global investigation that sheds light on the complex digital carbon water and waste footprints of digitalizations.

Welcome Paz, welcome Pablo. It's great to have you on the show today.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (04:15)

Thank you for having us in your program.

Paz Peña (04:18)

Yeah, thank you very much for having us.

Gaël Duez (04:20)

My pleasure, both of you.

So Paz, is it the first UN-backed report ever to address the environmental impact of digitalization?

Paz Peña (04:30)

Yes, it is.

Gaël Duez (04:32)

So that's a kind of a game changer, isn't it?

Paz Peña (04:34)

Yes, I will say absolutely. As you said before, is a report that I will say one of the first reports by the UN saying that digitalization is not all good. Even more saying that the social environmental impacts of digitization are huge, but not only huge, are differential depending on where you are in the world.

And this is very important because what it's saying is that the social environmental impacts of digitization, which are growing through the time, is being paid by the poorest of the world. The developing countries, the poorest countries. And again, the benefits of digitization.

are being enjoyed almost only for the developed world, which brings us a very classical and difficult concept, which is the colonial relationships that are again being deployed in digitization, which is something really difficult to address in the UN, but it's so necessary in these times where sustainable or sustainability is being discussed as a justice issue. And that actually brings us to discuss how digitization can be a justice issue in terms of sustainability.

Gaël Duez (06:09)

And just to understand like the concept of colonialism or neo colonialism was brought to light in the UN report or is it more like an underlying evolution in the state of mind of UN representatives starting to incorporate this concept also in a main report as this one?

Paz Peña (06:30)

Yeah, they will not name colonialism as it is. I don't know, Pablo, if you saw that concept as it is, because it's a very political, difficult concept for a UN fora, However, yeah, exactly. However you can see powerful concepts as, you know, unjusties, you know, different effects between the world, etc. You can see actually what they are saying is about colonialism, but of course they are not named as it is, because probably it's a very difficult concept to address in the UN.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (07:01)

It is in between lines, I will say it. And to add what Paz already said, this report is the result of a process of a critical thinking process that took almost 18 months from 2023 to 2024. And it is also the result of the work of several scientific researchers from all over the world that were here for the first time, let's call it the first time at Geneva, to address the externalities regarding the digital ecosystem we are dealing with and not only that, that we are seeing intensifying in a way that we have never seen before. This is really important to address and this is the timely that explains the importance of this critical report. It is a scientific report based on an ethical approach.

If you go deeply in this report, it says developing countries are suffering disproportionately from digitalization's negative environmental externalities of effects, as well as missing out on economic development opportunities to digital divides.

It used the term unequal ecological exchange between developed and developing countries regarding digitalization. And this is also an complementary part of what Bas already said and your question. It is in between colonialism or neocolonialism.

Gaël Duez (09:20)

just before we deep dive into the importance of this report and maybe what's in this report, two short questions. The first one you mentioned that it was a scientific work. Was it mostly based on primary data or is it more an aggregation of other scientific studies that were used to build the end results?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (09:44)

It took and it used several primary and secondary resources. it is the most comprehensive integral report until now. It looks back from 1996 from the first ever report on digital sustainability until now. It addressed the problematic behind the methodologies that every single report used to say this and to say that. And there is no continuity at all because there is no universal understanding of methodology on how to deal with what we call the digital ecosystem. What is the digital ecosystem? That's your e-bike right now is part of the digital ecosystem or your Tesla car because they are already computers. They are already intelligent. They are already smart. We use also the primary data United Nations has with several agencies all around the world. And what you read, And this is really important to say also is a really comprehensive report. It is right in a common language that you and me can understand.

Gaël Duez (11:22)

So if I understand both of you right and if you indulge me to sum up a bit what you've said, this is the first of its kind tackling this issue. It has a broad ambition of tackling quite difficult topics, even if some of them are not named, but at least they are addressed.

And it's also one of the most comprehensive based on several studies, quite a lot of researchers being involved. So I think it's a fair statement to say that pretty much everyone working in the digital economy should have a look at it. Am I right?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (12:04)

it is for everyone, for you and me, for the common ones, for all the ones involved in a digital transformation society. It is not only for politicians, it's not only for ICT. No, it is for the common people, for you and me.

Gaël Duez (12:27)

So I think we've teased enough about this report. Maybe Paz, if you allow me to ask you these questions. On the impact side, and we will talk a bit later on this very important social justice concept that you've raised, but on the impact size, what are the main findings? Maybe what are the one or two numbers that you believe everyone should be aware when it comes to the environmental impact of digitalization?

Paz Peña (12:56)

Sure, so first I will say that one of the greatest thing about this report is that Big Tech is not present there in terms of giving their reports as evidence. It's a very independent report, which is not so common even in the UN. I will say ANTAT is one of the few UN agencies that is still very independent in terms of funding, et cetera. And you can find here that this is a proof that big tech, these big companies are not present there. Actually, we were with Pablo doing the peer review in a couple of meetings with people of, UNCTAD's people, they were all independent researchers, which was very, very rich because the discussion was very, very honest. That is the first thing that is important to say because what you're gonna see in this report, it's scientific evidence, it's not big tech evidence, And the second thing that is really interesting is when you see actually the evidence of environmental impacts of sustainability is not a conversation only focused on CO2 emissions, which is a very important thing because of the use of energy and increase of the use of energy of digitization, but it's very...focus on the necessities of the global north, which is of course very important because the global north doesn't have energy matrix that is clean yet. But that is not actually a very big issue for the global south. For example, Latin America is the continent that has today the most clean energy matrix in the world.

So the use of energy of digitization, it's important, of course, but it's not really the main issue here in the global south in terms of the environmental effects of digitization.

So one of the things that for me, it's more interesting about the report is that actually has complete evidence there about carbon and digital technologies largely compete for the same critical minerals, especially in the global South. So...

Minerals are a geopolitical factor that is actually activating policies around the global south from the global north to actually have access to these minerals. And then here you can actually start the discussion about how these geopolitical necessity of the global north of accessing to these critical minerals is actually affecting developing countries in terms of how this is feeding illegal mining for example or unsustainable practices in mining because that is where the money is today.

Gaël Duez (16:07)

I'd like to ask you one last question to get things a bit more concrete here, because you mentioned several times how the report is important, but most of the listeners, will not have read the report. So let me ask you this question to give you the opportunity to provide a bit of numbers or facts that are mind blowing enough for people to remember and to understand what you are highlighting. So, Paz, you've mentioned that actually digitalizations and the transition towards low carbon economy, they tend to compete for the same resources, especially minerals.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (16:54)

By 2050, we will need more than 150 billion tons of minerals annually. And that will include 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, and the production of rare earth metals must be increased at last 12 folds. If you look...into e-waste this year or just published a couple of days ago by 2022 the world generated 62 billion kilograms of e-waste.

It is extremely important to say the complexity we are dealing with when we try to define once again what is a digital device, what is a digital infrastructure, and what is not. Because if you look once again the example of an e-bike or a Tesla car.

then we have to consider them as part of this digital ecosystem, but at the same time as part of the transitional electrification that we are dealing with. The way IoT devices are being created is a moving target that makes really difficult the definition right now of what is a digital device, what is not a digital device. But the main point here is how transitional minerals, that's the word we use in the report to refer to critical minerals, how the amounts of transitional minerals we are going to need. We are talking about open-bit mining. We are talking about the renaissance of the mining industry. We are talking about that we are completely dependent on all elements of the periodic and to obtain them you are not going to find them in Europe. You have to go to Global South to get them.

Gaël Duez (19:19)

And my question, Pablo, regarding this is really, what is the share of digital? mean, if I understand you right, what you're saying is pretty much everything is digital now. Am I right?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (19:29)

electrify and digital. We are living an electrification era and at the same time we are dealing with an internet intelligent era that is taking for its own almost everything, almost every device we use daily.

Gaël Duez (19:52)

Because in the research field, there are several, I would say, debates still going on on how you define what is the ICT sector and what is not the ICT sector. And what is the share of greenhouse gases emitted by the ICT sector? And usually it's believed between 2 and 4%, depending on the studies, et cetera, et cetera. And your point is...

It's slightly irrelevant because the digital economy is fueling the entire economy I mean, you follow Malmöder, for instance, he has a very strong stance on what should be in the digital economy or counted as ICT and what should not like the TV debate, et cetera, et cetera. Your point is

And that's maybe the point in this report as well. That doesn't really matter that strongly to draw a very clear boundary because electrification is everywhere, digitalization is everywhere, and that fueled the trend in this massive increase in mineral resources that you've just described a bit earlier. Am I correct to rephrase you that way?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (21:06)

you are completely correct.

Gaël Duez (21:08)

Okay, thanks. I got it.

Pablo, you were mentioning having a holistic view on everything and I guess both of you, you stressed quite a lot the abiotic resources, mostly metals and minerals. But there are also other impacts that are touched upon in this report.

We cannot list all of them, but can I briefly ask you to share maybe one or two figures or one or two facts that you believe are also very important when it comes to environmental impacts? And as far as I know, Pablo, you're quite keen on studying the water usage of the digital sector. Maybe you've got some things to tell us about.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (21:55)

Sure. we can understand this better if we say that the more virtual we become, the more fresh and potable water we need for that. And that means that our digital world is literally liquids. We surf the internet, navigating and diving into its waters. And I want to be here clear enough, Kyle. It is the water that makes virtuality possible. That digital light is as blue as the fresh water that make it possible.

Now I'm talking here about data center industry. Here I'm talking now about the semiconductor industry. I'm talking here about the open pit mining industry.

I'm talking here about the production of our gadgets,

Gaël Duez (23:04)

I there are quite a lot of examples about this, maybe Paz being based in Chile. I think this is one of the countries where the tension between the mining industries and the population regarding water usage has been one of the fiercest. So do you want to comment on what Pablo just said?

Paz Peña (23:26)

Yes, absolutely. in all Latin America, one of the biggest climate effects today is drought. And you can see that in different states. But in the case of Chile, Chile is suffering a historical drought for over 30 years where water is scarce, even for human consumption. And you can see that many of the territorial fights for different communities is actually the access of fresh water. And this is something that is present in mining activities, but also which are related to the digitization, for example, in terms of the lithium mining in the north of Chile, which is one of the biggest worldwide resources of lithium to digitization and green energies. And the fight there from indigenous communities is actually how this mining is affecting the access of fresh water for indigenous community there, which is basically

having a very concrete impact in terms of the environment. Natural, different animals, for example, are being displaced from that place because of this scarcity of water. But also these indigenous communities are being displaced of their territories because of this, which is again something that we must discuss as a society why indigenous communities that haven't actually contributed to the ecological crisis and climate crisis that we are facing as a world, why they are paying the price of having green energies and digitization. This is one thing. But also, Gael...

For example, here in Santiago, public policies are being deployed to be some sort of data center hub in Latin America. So there's a lot of data centers being built here in Santiago from like Big Tech, Alphabet, Microsoft, et cetera.

And it's very interesting because many of the territorial fights that you can see here in Santiago are regarding the access of fresh water. It's about fighting the building of this huge infrastructure, digital infrastructure for example, in this year, actually at the beginning of this year, in February, I think, a court of law rescinded part of the authorization of the construction of this data center built by Google because there wasn't enough proof of the effects on the access of water for communities, how that will be affected by this huge infrastructure. And actually a couple of weeks ago, Alphabet desisted from insisting on the original design of this data center. And this, it means that they will modify and start all over again. But this is important, Gael, because it shows that people, organized people can actually fight this kind of infrastructure that is designed without seeing actually the environmental effects of its deployment, especially in terms of freshwater in this context of drought, but also in the context of the ecological and climate crisis.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (27:15)

Absolutely right.

Gaël Duez (27:16)

And Paz, what is the current trend in I've heard about some water quotas also for the mining industry. I've heard also that the mining industry was now building massive water pipeline to bring seawater into the mountains, has obviously a huge environmental and ecological and energy toll, but also to mitigate the water crisis. is it just one piece of news completely out of context that doesn't really describe properly what is at stake in the current train or actually is Chile getting more and more concerned about this water consumption issues and has started to regulate or to mitigate or to slow down the rising water consumption by both the mining industry and now because you've put that under the spotlight as well, the data center industry.

Paz Peña (28:19)

That's a very interesting question, Gael, because in Latin America, and especially, for example, in countries as Chile, we call ourselves a mineral country. We basically provide minerals to the world. So copper, for example, is a very important mineral for the Chilean economy. And now lithium, it is being really important because of this, because of green energies and because of digitization. So all our public policies are based on that extraction in terms of get money and pay everything that we need as an estate. So it's a very historical discussion are the environmental costs of mining in Chile because of this. But I will say in the last 15 years, the discussion around the access of fresh water is increasing, especially in the public opinion, because of the ecological and climate crisis that we're facing. we are now understanding that we are not going back to our earlier climate condition. Now we are living with drought for all our life. So this is a discussion that is increasing. It's a very difficult discussion to have because it depends on the economy, know, mineral economy which is why it's so important actually this kind of reports because it shows you actually who is paying the costs of green energies but also digitization in terms actually of access of fresh water.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (30:14)

I mean, without the natural resources of global south, it's no possibility to talk about digital transition or green energies. Another really interesting example, not only talking about the mineral countries in Latin America or the ones that are dealing with data centers, it is now the semiconductor industry that is taking over the region. And do not forget that this industry consumes over 264 billions gallons of water per year. And that is more than Hong Kong. And this industry needs a lot of ultra-pure water and you can find it in places as Costa Rica, for example, chosen from the Biden administration to hold Intel expansion in the region. And this is, again, one of the new debates that are taking over in the region.

is this the economical progress we want to go in and with and that will cost this precious element we need to survive. put it in another way, data needs at this moment more water daily than you and me to exist.

Gaël Duez (31:47)

So we've covered quite a lot of the environmental impacts. We could also talk about the energy consumption. We could also talk about a bit more in details, greenhouse gasses. We could also talk about the share of electricity consumption used by the digital economy. But actually both of you at the very beginning of the interview, brought under the spotlight some very key and differentiator aspects with this report around social justice and some geopolitical significance of this report. And maybe I'd like to give you the floor now to talk a bit more about what I've understood to be some sort of a digital revolution paradox which is that those contributing the most in terms of resources, including human resources, I mean workers, are not the one benefiting more of it, of this digital revolution. I know that this is one of your specialties. Could you tell us a bit more? how you analyze this discrepancy.

Paz Peña (32:52)

Yeah, actually in the report you can see that UNCTAD is addressing that today digitalization is under a very concentrated market. That means that few companies actually are available to actually developed these very digital economies of the 21st century. And many of those companies are based in the US, others are in China, some of them very few are in Europe. And many of them are what we known as big tech companies. They have the power to have the infrastructure, the worldwide infrastructure to actually be able to address this need of digital economy in the world. So when we talk about digitization, for me it's really interesting to say, but who is behind that digitization? There are not many companies behind that. There are not many countries behind that.

you can count the companies that are available to actually address this task. And there are a few of them, probably 20, 25 in the world. So this is the first thing that I think we need to discuss. Who is actually enjoying the benefit, the economic benefits? Yes, they are, you

know, developing countries, industrialized countries of digitization, But not all the people actually. The ones that are enjoying the benefits of digitization the most is, these companies, no? Why there's this need to make everything digital is because there's a big push in terms of lobby to do that because these companies know that is where the money come from. So this is the first thing I believe is important to understand and this report will help us to understand that. The UNCTAD is addressing that there's a concentration of market in digital economy and this is a huge problem. This is the first thing. And the second thing I will say is that, as you said, Gaël the biggest question that we need to address here is also who is bearing the costs of digitization.

And you can see this worldwide where there's a gap between developing countries with industrialized countries. And there's a gap there that we have been discussing in this podcast. But also we need to address that even in developed countries, there is also communities that are bearing the cost of digitization. communities that are actually being cut off the access of fresh water in, for example, Europe, etc. And also this is a question of justice, but it's not only a question of justice between developed and developing world, but also in our communities in all the world, which is something that is very important to understand.

Gaël Duez (36:20)

when you say, and let me be the devil advocates here. When you say, Big Tech is benefiting the most from digitalization. Does it overlook all the benefits that quite a lot of people get also from digitalization via new jobs, better services, more productivity, you name it. mean, there are countless of reports and you've mentioned at the beginning that quite a lot of them are also sponsored by the digital industry, a lot of them are biased. But I would say for the average North American or European or Japanese or Chinese citizen, believing that digitalization doesn't bring mostly valuable things would be quite hard to sell. question is, sure, Big Tech is reaping quite a lot of the benefit, at least in the global north, does overall the population also benefit from this digital revolution?

Paz Peña (37:28)

Yes, but that is something that you can actually discuss. how digitization is actually benefiting our economies because you can say also that you are lowering the work standards that we had before digitization, for example. You can see, and there's many reports on how digitization is influencing this trend of uberization of economy, there's no doubt that developed countries are having more benefits because they have a more digital economy.

But you have to understand that today in the current state of capitalism, for many theorists, digitization is actually lowering the standards of work, for example, without even discussing all the other implications of digitization in terms of

techno-capitalism today in terms of, for example, mental health through being connected all day to social media, cetera. So this is not so clear. It's not so clear that all is benefits. But also, I think it's important to say that in developing countries, many developing countries, even I'm from Chile, so Latin America is a region that I know. In many countries in Latin America, the digital economy is not well developed yet. So when we are going through this global discourse of saying, so to be sustainable enough, we need digitization, digitization of everything. That means concretely today that the gap between these countries that are not having a digital economy well developed, that means that those countries will increase the with industrialized countries, with Europe, with Japan, et cetera. So that gap, that inequality gap is something that is not being discussed very seriously in the world. And I think, again, this and that report help us to understand that kind of new gap that we are creating with this discourse of saying, OK, we need to digitalize everything. Yes, that's maybe something good for the developed countries, but you have to be aware that developing countries are still behind that. And this could actually widening that gap, which is very, very serious matter.

Gaël Duez (40:09)

how would you define social injustice actually when it comes to the digital economy and could you provide one or two examples of this imbalance that you've described previously?

Paz Peña (40:22)

Sure, so I think we can define that... ...unjustice in the context of digitization is that... ...most of the added value created in the digital economy is captured by developed and digital advanced developing countries. many of the social environmental costs of digitization are paid by developing countries. And this is especially important, for example, in terms of mineral extraction, where the global south is basically the most affected by the extraction of minerals that are needed by the digital economy.

And minerals are being extracted from the Global South, that means a lot of pollution, a lot of illegal mining, which means human rights violations of people, displacement of indigenous communities, scarcity of fresh water, et cetera. Many people, for example, say that there's no way that green mining is possible. All mining have a lot of social environmental costs. And that is something that is as important to examine. So the latest UNTAD report actually what does is to examine those social environmental impacts of digitization in developing countries, which means to not only review evidence, scientific evidence, but also have a call, an international call for countries not only developing countries, but also industrialized countries to understand the need of sustainable digitization

But also, Gael, I just want to add something that I believe is really important to understand. It's that what we're seeing today is a geopolitical discussion where digital economy is really important. today digitalization or the digital economy is being discussed together with the transformation of our energy matrix to a more greener one. These two things, green energies and digitizations, is being discussed as one thing, as something that is needed for a more sustainable world. who is the boss in digital economy and who is available and have the capacity to have most important share of green energies in the world. So this is where the discussion is happening today.

Gaël Duez (43:17)

And what about the UN with this geopolitical impact? I this is supposed to be the place where nations are talking to each other. And, know, when I've read the report, I've seen all the recommendations about what should be done. And it sounded a bit like a wishful thinking list. And I was discussing it with a Green IO listener, Benjamin Davy, and he was really questioning whether the UN should or even is able to actually shift a bit from a reporting stance. This is how things are going to a more pedagogical stance and even maybe a bit of name and shame if possible, So my question is, what can actually the United Nations do about it and what actually should we do about it also?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (44:16)

United Nations UNCTAD in this case has adopted digital sustainability as a priority under the understanding the principle of common but differentiated responsibility as high relevant.

It is time also to extend the calls for both actions to the entire life cycle of digitalization and to systematically track its social environmental footprint. Be aware of the socio-environmental footprint of the mechanics behind the digital economy and be aware that the problem or part of the problem can be solved with the circular design. But be aware that if we do not follow that way, we are going to deal with really complex problems in the near future. I think this is the main thing, or one of the main things of this UNTACD report.

Gaël Duez (45:31)

Paz what do you think about the potential for collaboration at UN level and what the UN should do about it?

Paz Peña (45:39)

The UN is going through a huge political crisis because of the war between Israel and Palestine and Lebanon. And also because the lack of concrete action in terms of the climate and ecological crisis we are facing through. But there's also a lot of critics regarding the UN forum and its role in the technological, digital internet governance, because mainly there's a lot of big tech influence in there, et cetera. So I think we need to be realistic and understand the political limits of the UN. There's a lot of fight inside. There's a lot of interest there. I mean, I'm very critical about that, but that doesn't mean that you can actually take these kind of reports and do your own political work as a community, as a territory, as a researcher, et cetera. I do like a lot of many of the conclusion of this report and that reports. really believe that circular as Pablo said, can be something important in terms of the designing of the digital economy. But I do also believe that circular economy is just a mitigation policy. It's not addressing the biggest problem of digital economy, which is basically this logic, this capitalist logic of extraction. This idea, as Pablo said, the idea that we have infinite resources for the economy, which is a completely crazy idea in terms of our reality, in terms of natural resources. And I don't think we can find in any report, including the UNCTAD report, a recommendation that is addressing the problem of capitalism today in digitization, which for me is the biggest problem. But that doesn't mean that these kind of reports that are designed with independent scientific science can help actually communities to understand their reality and actually start to have a more political reaction to it. So I will say, of course, I don't think the UN can do something more relevant in this issue, but I do believe that this kind of report can actually be very useful for communities around the world.

Gaël Duez (48:32)

So more awareness than actual actions because of the ongoing political crisis, according to you, Paz. I? Okay, got it. And my last question for both of you would be,

Paz Peña (48:40)

I will say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gaël Duez (48:46)

As someone working in this digital economy and many listeners of this show are actually workers of the digital economy.

What can we do? How should we react to such a report? And what would be your two cents on tackling the different large issues that are highlighted in this report?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (49:02)

We need to go back to our critical thinking.

And with the critical thinking, break the magical digital thinking we are dealing with.

Understand that cyberspace has a growing footprint, multi-dimensional, that every time we use, we deal with our digital environment has a consequence.

Paz Peña (49:38)

I believe that digital workers are essential for change in digitization and in digital economies, are essential. And I actually have two concrete suggestions for workers in the digital industry. First, one of the most important is think about tech differently. try to experiment with new designs of tech that can be actually more sustainable, that cannot necessarily think in growth and growth and growth and maybe think in technology that can be used in territories with the participation of communities, et cetera. Let's try to think out of the box and believe in other tech is possible.

the second thing, if you're working in a big tech company and in the industry, it's so, so important for workers to fight for more transparency in terms of the social environmental impacts of that company in different territories. fight for transparency. You are key in this. Today what we are dealing with is that companies tend to be very obscure in how they report their environmental impacts. If we can fight for more transparency, it's something that is so key not only for scientific but also for territories, for people in their territories that can actually start a dialogue with companies. And I think workers are key for that. And for me, this is the second very concrete suggestion. Fight for transparency.

Gaël Duez (51:34)

fight for transparency. Quite a tagline for this episode.

What would be a positive piece of news that both of you would like to share regarding the ongoing trend in the digital economy?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (51:47)

I see there is more attention to the importance of the circular design in our digital world. I also see more efforts, for example, at the… European Union level to address critical matters regarding not only the circular design, but also the power of Big Tech Corporates regarding artificial intelligence.

And what I'm also is a more critical thinking approach on the digital ecosystem we have, the nature of it, and the chances we have to correct.

Paz Peña (52:35)

I completely agree with Pablo. Five years ago, even three years ago, you didn't see many news in the outlets around the social environmental impacts, for example, of AI, of the digital economy. Today that is completely changed, I think.

There's also a lot of critical thinking or more critical thinking around digitization, but also that means there's a lot of territorial movements saying, know, these digital technologies have a very concrete material impact in our realities. That means that there are people, not necessarily

people that is related to tech, but people in their communities saying, you know, let's discuss about this. And this is something that you can see in the media outlets. And I think that is very, very positive because that means that people is alive actually, know, trying to change and to have a better world, a sustainable world, even in digital technologies.

Gaël Duez (53:49)

thanks a lot, both of you for highlighting the rise in awareness, at least in our industry. And let's hope that it will have some impact at some point, but awareness is always the first step. And this is a very reason of this podcast as well.

And yeah, it was really nice to have you both of you on the show, not talking the regular green software or responsible AI topics, but zooming out a bit and discussing massive geopolitical and social issues. So thanks a lot, both of you for this.

Paz Peña (54:12)

Thank you, Gael, for the invitation.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (54:20)

thank you very much for make this space possible. And this is also really positive to mention the attention that you are giving also to this issue. Thank you very much.

Paz Peña (54:30)

Yeah.

Thank you and so nice to see you, Pablo.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (54:39)

That's it. Bye!

Gaël Duez (54:44)

Thank you for listening to this Green.io episode. Sharing it on social media or directly with, well, pretty much everyone working in the digital sector or using digital services seems a good idea regarding what is at stake here. You know the drill, being an independent media, we rely mostly on you to get more responsible technologists on board. In our next episode,

We were supposed to welcome the CTO of Backmarket, Dawn Baker, to tell us more about some radical choices she made in the GreenOps field. However, the brutal dismantling of the sustainability team at WordPress requires some coverage. And I will be honored to welcome in the next episode three of the initiators of this grassroots movement. Nahuai Badiola, Nora Ferreiros and Csaba Varszegi

There will provide us some context and clarification about what happened and more importantly what to do next when you are a responsible technologist using WordPress as your main CMS. course, the episode with Dawn Baker will be released just after. Don't worry. One last thing, Green IO is a podcast and much more. So visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog and check the conferences we organize across the globe. We opened the call for speakers for our five planned conferences this year. It will be in Singapore, New York, Munich, London and Paris. So if you want to share your experience in green software, sustainable design, green art, responsible AI, you name it, please fill in the form.

I'm looking forward to meeting you there to build with you, fellow responsible technologists, a greener digital world.

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67 episodes

#Tech #Gaël Duez #Sustainability #Digital #Carbon Footprint #Climate Change #Low Carbon #Science #Non-Profit #Geology #Business #Green

#51 Exploring the digital revolution paradox from a UN perspective with Paz Pena and Pablo José Gamez Cersosimo

Green IO

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🗺️ Colonialism and Digitalization

🪨 Geopolitical Importance of Critical Minerals

💧 Water Footprint of Digitalization

⚒️ Water Usage and Mining in Chile

🔎 The Digital Divide: A Growing Gap

🇺🇳 The Role of the UN in Digital Sustainability

And much more!

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Pablo’s and Paz’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

Transcript (auto-generated)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (00:00)

our digital world is literally liquids. It is the water that makes virtuality possible. That digital light is as blue as the fresh water that make it possible.

Gaël Duez (00:19)

Gaël Duez (01:53)

Welcome Paz, welcome Pablo. It's great to have you on the show today.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (04:15)

Thank you for having us in your program.

Paz Peña (04:18)

Yeah, thank you very much for having us.

Gaël Duez (04:20)

My pleasure, both of you.

So Paz, is it the first UN-backed report ever to address the environmental impact of digitalization?

Paz Peña (04:30)

Yes, it is.

Gaël Duez (04:32)

So that's a kind of a game changer, isn't it?

Paz Peña (04:34)

Gaël Duez (06:09)

Paz Peña (06:30)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (07:01)

Gaël Duez (09:20)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (09:44)

Gaël Duez (11:22)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (12:04)

Gaël Duez (12:27)

Paz Peña (12:56)

So the use of energy of digitization, it's important, of course, but it's not really the main issue here in the global south in terms of the environmental effects of digitization.

Gaël Duez (16:07)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (16:54)

Gaël Duez (19:19)

And my question, Pablo, regarding this is really, what is the share of digital? mean, if I understand you right, what you're saying is pretty much everything is digital now. Am I right?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (19:29)

Gaël Duez (19:52)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (21:06)

you are completely correct.

Gaël Duez (21:08)

Okay, thanks. I got it.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (21:55)

Now I'm talking here about data center industry. Here I'm talking now about the semiconductor industry. I'm talking here about the open pit mining industry.

I'm talking here about the production of our gadgets,

Gaël Duez (23:04)

Paz Peña (23:26)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (27:15)

Absolutely right.

Gaël Duez (27:16)

Paz Peña (28:19)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (30:14)

Gaël Duez (31:47)

Paz Peña (32:52)

Gaël Duez (36:20)

Paz Peña (37:28)

Gaël Duez (40:09)

how would you define social injustice actually when it comes to the digital economy and could you provide one or two examples of this imbalance that you've described previously?

Paz Peña (40:22)

Gaël Duez (43:17)

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (44:16)

United Nations UNCTAD in this case has adopted digital sustainability as a priority under the understanding the principle of common but differentiated responsibility as high relevant.

Gaël Duez (45:31)

Paz what do you think about the potential for collaboration at UN level and what the UN should do about it?

Paz Peña (45:39)

Gaël Duez (48:32)

So more awareness than actual actions because of the ongoing political crisis, according to you, Paz. I? Okay, got it. And my last question for both of you would be,

Paz Peña (48:40)

I will say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gaël Duez (48:46)

As someone working in this digital economy and many listeners of this show are actually workers of the digital economy.

What can we do? How should we react to such a report? And what would be your two cents on tackling the different large issues that are highlighted in this report?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (49:02)

We need to go back to our critical thinking.

And with the critical thinking, break the magical digital thinking we are dealing with.

Understand that cyberspace has a growing footprint, multi-dimensional, that every time we use, we deal with our digital environment has a consequence.

Paz Peña (49:38)

Gaël Duez (51:34)

fight for transparency. Quite a tagline for this episode.

What would be a positive piece of news that both of you would like to share regarding the ongoing trend in the digital economy?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (51:47)

And what I'm also is a more critical thinking approach on the digital ecosystem we have, the nature of it, and the chances we have to correct.

Paz Peña (52:35)

Gaël Duez (53:49)

Paz Peña (54:12)

Thank you, Gael, for the invitation.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (54:20)

thank you very much for make this space possible. And this is also really positive to mention the attention that you are giving also to this issue. Thank you very much.

Paz Peña (54:30)

Yeah.

Thank you and so nice to see you, Pablo.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (54:39)

That's it. Bye!

Gaël Duez (54:44)

I'm looking forward to meeting you there to build with you, fellow responsible technologists, a greener digital world.

67 episodes

#Tech #Gaël Duez #Sustainability #Digital #Carbon Footprint #Climate Change #Low Carbon #Science #Non-Profit #Geology #Business #Green

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#51 Exploring the digital revolution paradox from a UN perspective with Paz Pena and Pablo José Gamez Cersosimo

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#51 Exploring the digital revolution paradox from a UN perspective with Paz Pena and Pablo José Gamez Cersosimo