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Incorporation of software in the life cycle assessment of an ICT service: A case study of an ICT service for energy efficiency in the transport sector
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Sustainable development, Environmental science and Engineering, Sustainability Assessment and Management. Höganäs AB, Sweden.
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Sustainable development, Environmental science and Engineering, Sustainability Assessment and Management. KTH, School of Industrial Engineering and Management (ITM), Centres, KTH Climate Action Centre, CAC. KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Centres, Digital futures.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7480-0858
KTH, School of Architecture and the Built Environment (ABE), Sustainable development, Environmental science and Engineering, Sustainability Assessment and Management. KTH, School of Industrial Engineering and Management (ITM), Centres, KTH Climate Action Centre, CAC. KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Centres, Digital futures.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5600-0726
2024 (English)In: Journal of Industrial Ecology, ISSN 1088-1980, E-ISSN 1530-9290, Vol. 28, no 6, p. 1965-1978Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Information communication and technology (ICT) services and solutions can improve resource efficiency in a variety of sector, but also result in direct environmental impacts. This study assesses the direct environmental impacts of an ICT service that improves vehicle fuel efficiency using a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA). This is one of the first studies to examine the entire life cycle of an ICT service from development to use and maintenance, with a focus on software—an aspect that is typically neglected in previous studies. The results suggest that software development and maintenance and the use of in-vehicle communicators for data transmission have the largest environmental impacts across multiple categories. Deployed across a fleet of 150,000 vehicles over 5 years, we estimate that the ICT service is responsible for 174 tCO2e. However, this is negligible compared with the total emissions of the fleet and the potential savings from the service, given a single diesel vehicle in this fleet emits around 130 tCO2e over the same period. We explore several scenarios to reduce the footprint of the ICT service. The largest potential reduction of around one-third is achieved by replacing in-house servers with cloud computing in a data center located in a region with low-carbon electricity. The study demonstrates how LCA can be used to assess the environmental impacts of ICT services and the importance of considering software in these assessments.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Wiley , 2024. Vol. 28, no 6, p. 1965-1978
Keywords [en]
digitalization, environmental impacts, greenhouse gas emissions, industrial ecology, LCA
National Category
Other Environmental Engineering
Research subject
Industrial Ecology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-356262DOI: 10.1111/jiec.13570ISI: 001382111800001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85208790661OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-356262DiVA, id: diva2:1912641
Note

QC 20250924

Available from: 2024-11-12 Created: 2024-11-12 Last updated: 2025-09-24Bibliographically approved

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fulltext(1353 kB)132 downloads
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Lopez Londoño, BryanAzizi, ShoaibFinnveden, Göran

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