Chris Butterworth

A sketch of a person with a beard and glasses holding a laptop

Glossary

Defining some of the key terms used when explaining digital sustainability including the term digital sustianability itself

Dark Data

Defined by Gartner as "the information assets organisations collect, process and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes". This could include data that was once useful and data never fully utilised.

Design Technologist

A design technologist is a hybrid role between designer and developer; they can handle design work, prototyping and development work.

Digital carbon footprint

"the CO2e emissions caused by the use of digital technologies, including manufacturing, disposal and usage of internal and external hardware and network usage"

Digital net zero

Acheiving net zero within your digital operations bringing your digital carbon footprint to zero by implementing monitoring, measuring and reporting tools, reduction strategies that align with science-based targets and purchasing certified gold standard offsets.

Digital sustainability

– Adopting digital transformation to aid in reducing the impact of your business operations

– Measuring, reporting and lowering carbon emissions created by an organisations digital operations

– Applying social, ecomonic and environmental principles to digital products and services

GHG Protocol

The Greehouse Gas Protocol is the most widely use gas accounting standards.

The protocol utilises 3 scopes to help divide the sources of the emissions and help make them easier to manage with more being mentioned such as scope 4 which is known as "avoided emissions" i.e. the emissions saved by others by using their product and scope 5 which would include the impact an organisations wider activities.

Net zero

"a target of completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

This is the definition according to Oxford Languages and sounds simple enough, the reality is far from it.

Scope 1

A label from the GHG Protocol Standards applied to carbon emissions an organisation creates by directly burning fuel for energy or generation. This also applies to an organisations fleet of vehicles as well as air conditioning leakages.

Scope 2

A label from the GHG Protocol Standards applied to carbon emissions an organisation creates by purchasing or acquiring electricity or steam for heat and cooling.

Scope 3

A label from the GHG Protocol Standards applied to carbon emissions an organisation creates that isn't covered by Scope 1 or 2, including purchased goods or services. By far the largest and most complex scope under current GHG Protocol Standards, covering up to 95% of an organisations impact.

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