c't Know-how 2024 (eBook)

Technology product XY is climate neutral

 If you think about it for a moment, it should be clear that no product can be climate-neutral in the literal sense of the word, i.e. cause no greenhouse gas emissions. This is true even in the unlikely event that all components could be manufactured and transported using green electricity. After all, the solar cells and wind turbines for the green electricity also have to be produced somehow. For complex pro-ducts such as smartphones with thousands of sup-pliers and dozens of raw materials, climate neutra-lity is impossible.

Tech companies, like many others, advertise this anyway; Apple, for example, describes its smartwatches as CO2-neutral. There are usually simple calculation tricks behind this, in Apple's case two in particular: as many Apple suppliers use at least some green electricity, Apple can at-tribute this to the watches in its carbon footprint. However, this makes the rest of the production process dirtier and Apple's definition of ‘renewa-ble energy’ is generous anyway (see c’t 23/2022, p. 118). Apple also buys – certificates like many others – to offset the remaining emissions. These

are also based on forest protection projects, i.e. the theory that someone actually wanted to cut down a forest. Environmentalists therefore descri-be Apple's advertising as greenwashing (see c’t 23/2023, p. 49).

In any case, the EU wants to ban advertising claims such as ‘climate neutral’ and ‘CO2-neutral’ if they are based on offsetting certificates. ‘Such claims should be banned under all circumstances [...] as they mislead consumers’, according to an agreement between the EU Parliament and member states. The rules will probably not come into force until 2026. (cwo@ct.de)

Computers and smartphones are living shorter and shorter lives

 ‘More and more people are buying new compu-ters and smartphones after just a few years’ – This impression is misleading. On the contrary, the ave-rage usage times of desktop PCs, notebooks and smartphones have been increasing for several years now. The industry association Bitkom publis-hed a survey on smartphones at the beginning of 2023, according to which more and more private individuals are keeping their devices for longer than two years. Although the proportion was only

Literature

Lutz Labs et al, IT-Mythen im Check: c’t-La-bor statt Bauchgefühl, c’t 24/2017, p. 66

Peter König, Doroth-ee Wiegand et al, IT-Mythen aufgeklärt: Die Wahrheit über Hard-ware, Windows, Inter-net & Co., c’t 19/2014, p. 90

Gerald Himmelein, Ronald Eikenberg et al, PC-Mythen aufgeklärt: „Windows wird immer-langsamer“ und andere Legenden, c’t 5/2011, p. 84

Christof Windeck, Christian Wölbert, Streamen ohne Schuldgefühle, Kli-maschutz: Was Nutzer tun können, c’t 6/2020, p. 66

Dr. Ralph Hin-temann and Simon Hinterholzer (2020), Videostreaming: Ener-giebedarf und CO2-Emissionen, Bor-derstep: heise.de/s/gO882 (PDF)

Christof Windeck, Mücke oder Elefant?, Weshalb sich der KI-Stromverbrauch schlecht einschätzen lässt, c’t 26/2023, p. 58

Background paper by Border-step and further information...