Companies, switch to responsible digital: Boavizta's arguments are convincing

December 21, 2023: Boavizta association publishes a study entitled 'Responsible Digital - How to involve your hierarchy?'. The benefits of the approach are multiple: reduction of ecological impact and resource consumption, better attractiveness of talents as an employer... many arguments to assert with companies.

Boavizta is a French association, independent and inter-organizational. Its mission began in December 2020 with the launch of the Environmental Footprint Data project. Its goal: collect information on the instructions published by digital equipment manufacturers to calculate their impact. To access the data more easily, the association members have designed a web service called Datavizta. Today, the association is gathering more and more members and continues its goal of providing more and more figures and studies on the impact of digital technology.

In 2023, a working group focused on companies that have taken steps to reduce their digital impact.

To conduct this study, the Boavizta team carried out several iterations over a year to obtain the current deliverable.

Julien Rouze, the leader of this study, and Océane Puech, study collaborator (from designing questionnaires to conducting interviews and producing the deliverable) share their conclusions at the end of this work.

We wanted something representative of the current situation: large companies, IT consulting firms, and software developers. A mix of very small businesses, SMEs (small and medium enterprises), and intermediate-sized companies.

This work reveals a strong trend towards responsible digital practices:

It often starts with employees organizing themselves, then creating a responsible digital task force that gains momentum over time. Until it reaches the management committee, which acknowledges their initiative and gives approval to continue the process.

The study does not specify the profiles of individuals playing this driving role within organizations - except for roles dedicated to digital development (developers, devops, etc.). A sector competing with recent advances in artificial intelligence in terms of generating computer code.

These are often people linked to the IT department (information systems), very tech-savvy, who realize at some point that digital technology consumes a lot. As enthusiasts, they create tangible things, easier to accept by the management committee. For example, they stop leaving their computer on standby all night.

Responsible digital technology would therefore be a solution to the fear that grips many developers and professionals in the world of digital technology. A return to the basics, to the foundation of code, to propose lighter and low-carbon solutions. A new challenge for the most passionate technophiles. Thus, positioning oneself in opposition to energy-hungry artificial intelligence, producing code devoid of intention, would be the key for many developers.

In recent years, programming languages and frameworks have continued to evolve and multiply, with the goal of making this profession increasingly accessible and easy to learn. As a result, these systems constitute layers and overlays of development that weigh down our computer systems, consuming much more energy than they should.

In the era of no-code solutions, or services for building sites only through text assisted by AI, a return to craftsmanship in code through the lens of responsible digital technology could rebalance the situation.

The Boavizta team, however, observed during the study that the financial argument (return on investment) was rarely mentioned among the positive aspects of a responsible digital approach. The association is not particularly surprised, as the surveyed companies are at the beginning of their transition and have not yet implemented the appropriate tools to track changes.

In the studied companies, there was very little monitoring or tracking of indicators on responsible digital technology. That's why our work is not finished. We will create a framework (impact, means, result) covering a range of indicators that companies can use according to their context. This framework will, of course, be Open Source. It will allow us to question companies again and compare them more effectively.

At the end of the study, significant figures begin to appear. Some companies have shared interesting data:

-40%

This represents a potential saving of over €1 million per year, thanks to the standby mode of workspaces and the extended life of digital equipment. Julien Rouze shares the lessons learned from an interview with an Ubisoft employee:

To achieve this, it took 3 years for a new recruit placed directly within the IT department, with the mission of reducing the environmental footprint. This person had to create her network internally, evangelize the responsible digital theme, and then take action.

10,000

Ultimately, the Boavizta team is optimistic that companies are initiating or continuing a responsible digital approach - whether for ecological, financial, or regulatory reasons. Their deliverable may serve as a catalyst to encourage new companies to take the plunge. Océane Puech concludes:

We wanted concrete arguments for employees. They can download the deliverable and consult arguments specific to their company type. They just have to personalize them and rely on Boavizta's deliverable to convince their manager and start the process more quickly.

Sources:

• Github - First commit of the Environmental Footprint Data project (Boavizta)
• Dataviz - Multi-criteria impact visualizer of digital equipment
• Boavizta - Responsible digital: How to get your hierarchy on board?

[Cover photo: Sascha Bosshard]

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