Behind every click, a cloudburst

"The digital is physical," says Gerry McGovern. "Every digital action in our daily lives costs energy.

- Sukanya Datta

In his 2020 book World Wide Waste, McGovern documents the true cost of our online lives through a blend of statistics and insight drawn from this work. It is important to make visible the intricate hidden web of energy-hungry infrastructure that allows us to use the internet as we do, he says.

He didn't always feel this way. The 63-year-old Irishman started out as a digital evangelist, helping companies optimise their websites in the 1990s. As an independent consultant, he now helps organisations assess and reduce the environmental impact of their digital operations.

"Years of marketing and branding have gone into our perception that the digital world is 'light', 'clean' and 'floating in the cloud'. The reality is very different," he says.

Excerpts from an interview.

What first led you to interrogate the environmental impact of our technology?

For decades, the focus of my work was improving efficiency and helping clients market themselves better online. Then, in 2018, something about the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg's messaging made me start to reevaluate my life, including my work.