Sustainability & AI
Digital carbon footprint
The emissions attributed to an individual's or organisation's use of digital products and services; a contested but widespread term.
Definition
The greenhouse-gas emissions attributed to an individual's or organisation's use of digital products and services — devices, transmission, data centres and their manufacture.
Quick reference
At a glance
- Subject
- Sustainability & AI
- Editorial status
- Editorial draft
- Definition status
- Established
- Last updated
- 21 August 2026
References
This source provides part of the technical or institutional basis for the definition.
This source supports the explanation of how the term is applied, measured or governed in practice.
Overview
What it means
The term is widespread in advocacy and corporate communications but methodologically contested: allocation across shared infrastructure, system boundaries and embodied versus operational emissions produce widely divergent numbers. Bottom-up studies of specific services — such as the Carbon Trust's 2021 analysis of video streaming — have corrected earlier inflated per-hour figures.
How it is used
Organisations use digital-footprint estimates in ICT inventories and employee engagement; consumers encounter per-activity figures ('an email emits X grams') that rarely survive methodological scrutiny. AI usage adds a new, fast-growing component to these calculations.
Why it matters
Digital carbon footprint is useful as an engagement concept and hazardous as an accounting one. The dictionary flags it as contested language: figures attached to it should always be traced to their boundaries and assumptions.
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