Systems thinking and efficiency under emissions constraints: Addressing rebound effects in digital innovation and policy
Rebound effects occur in the digital sector when ICT efficiency improvements offset
emissions savings or increase emissions. These must be considered in digital innovation
and associated policy for sustainable ICT; however, there are key challenges to this
that we identify through a transdisciplinary workshop and discuss in this perspective.
We call for future work to address these challenges and to take a systems thinking
approach for considering ICT’s environmental impacts. From this, a solution to rebound
effects becomes visible: efficiencies under emissions constraints.