Can the IOT world be sustainable?

The term Internet of Things IoT has permeated our society in recent years especially intense in the media. While the term is not new, it is also true that the technological capabilities to implement it more effectively are more recent. The massification of electronic devices, the real possibility of analyzing large amounts of data through Big Data and drawing useful conclusions from them seem to have opened the door for an explosion of the IoT.

The term IoT is in development and therefore does not yet have a universally accepted definition. A survey of several researchers in 2013 reflects this situation:

1. However, it could be defined as a concept that refers to the digital interconnection of everyday objects with internet.

2. With everyday objects reference is made to all kinds of products such as refrigerators, blenders, automobiles, lighting and in general any device that interacts in any way with a person.

Another term that is beginning to be heard is Internet of Everything English IoE. In this case, reference is made to the intelligent connection not only of things, but also of people, processes and data. That is to say that IoT would be added the necessary intelligence so that the whole system can work in a convergent and orchestrated way.

Now, beyond the definitions, the truth is that if you are currently looking for information on these concepts, you can quickly find numerous articles and notes whose contents could be grouped into two topics. On the one hand the benefits that will bring to control all these devices and how it will facilitate daily life;and on the other, the implicit dangers of so much control. The latter basically grouped around the loss of privacy and the possibility of a hacker taking control of our objects, and by extension of our lives.

This article is not intended to delve into these issues. Not because they lack importance, but rather because there is already a lot of writing, and by more knowledgeable people of the subject. Here, rather, we seek to reflect on another problem related to the Internet of Things that does not seem to be adequately addressed: its environmental and social implications. In short, in the sustainability of IoT.

The world, as is known, is reaching its limits in the availability of several of its physical resources. This situation is well documented by numerous studies by well-known organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the private sector such as private consultancy KPMG, to mention just a few. The mechanism of excessive growth that then abruptly stops when encountering the limits imposed by its environment can actually be applied to many other orders of life and is commonly known as Exponential Growth. In ecology, for example, it applies to how a population of a certain species can grow exponentially (if it has the right conditions in its environment), until it reaches the limit of its resources. At this point growth slows down and then there is a sharp drop in the number of individuals.

The IoT, as an emerging technology, should take these limitations into account when considering its growth. In the same way that a species of living beings does it with the resources available in the environment.

Let's see some data to consider this question. In a conference, it was observed that trends indicate that by 2020 there will be between 17 and 30 billion (yes, billions) of objects connected to each other. And of course, behind them, the huge amount of data that will be shared. The same studies estimate them at 4.3 ZB per year. How much is this? Some calculations must be made to understand these magnitudes. For example, when the Internet era began between 1990 and 1995, it is estimated that 204 Terabytes (TB) per month were used worldwide. This equates to 200 iMac computers like the ones in any graphic design office today. Continuing in time, from 2005 to 2010 the consumption increased to about 20 thousand Petabyte (PB) per month. That is, the storage capacity of more than 20 million iMac. And if you get to the aforementioned 4.3 Zettabyte (ZB), there would be about 4600 million computers of the apple brand. To better measure this number, it is more than half of the world's population. And it does not continue from 2020.

The question that arises then is whether all this colossal storage capacity is free for our planet. Not in monetary terms, which are relative, but in terms of physical resources. You can be sure not. Each Megabyte of storage has an environmental cost. It uses physical materials, moves from the manufacturing site to the use site, uses energy to be used by the Internet and to be refrigerated, and finally, at the end of its useful life must be reprocessed (at best).

What is the environmental cost of extracting minerals, transforming them into materials and using that storage? To carry out these calculations, the Life Cycle Analysis methodology is usually used, which includes quantifying the environmental impact of a product along five stages: extraction, manufacturing, use, distribution and end of life.

In addition, until now the environmental cost of creating and using storage was mentioned. To realize the complete account, it would be necessary to add this same environmental cost to produce all the new intelligent objects. Because surely, you can not use the same blender, or the same glasses, or the same car that exist today. That is to say, we must reconvert the entire world population of objects. Of course, from an economic point of view, this change offers immense business opportunities. But it insists on the need to reflect on the environmental and social impacts of this enormous transformation that is approaching.

Like a coin that has two faces, IoT has a positive environmental side. Both device control will allow to better regulate the use of energy, water and many other consumables. Computers can decide more rationally and efficiently than people when lowering the temperature of an air conditioner, when lifting a blind to let in more natural light or when turning off a light in a room that there is no one. You can also drive a car more efficiently, rationalizing fuel consumption.

Many of the products that require consumables in their use (such as water, energy, oils and others) present their greatest environmental impacts at the use stage. This is not mere theory, since through the same methodology mentioned above in the Life Cycle Analysis this premise has been verified in many devices. Air conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators, coffee makers and an endless number of similar products fall within this group. In this sense, the IoT can make very significant contributions. In the first place, the ability to collect large-scale data about consumption behaviors by the public opens the door to having the possibility of generating savings and efficiency policies based on contrasted data. In addition, verification of compliance with these policies will also be an achievable reality. It is evident that this opens up opportunities for enormous efficiency improvements, which could translate into significant savings.

Then let's talk about the Jevons paradox to meditate and entertain: but as in this life not always everything that glitters is gold, the aforementioned improvements in efficiency may not necessarily lead to a global saving in resources. Examples of this are many, such as car engines. Compared with the engines of 15 or 20 years ago, the current ones are smaller and consume less fuel per kilometer traveled, meaning that it can be said that on average, each car today is more efficient than one of 20 years ago. However, the global amount of vehicles has grown exponentially in the world, with which global saving does not exist. What's more, today more fuel is consumed than 20 years ago.

This situation, where individual efficiency improvements do not lead to the supposed global savings has actually already been observed in the 18th century.At that time an English economist named Jevons, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, was commissioned to analyze and estimate the duration of coal reserves in England. Coal was strategic because at that time it was the main energy source to feed the steam engines.

What Jevons discovered is that as the machines improved their individual efficiency, they were used in more tasks. Therefore, although each machine consumed less coal to perform the same activity, more and more machines were used globally and the overall consumption of coal grew.

This paradox, where in spite of improving the efficiency at the individual level, results in a greater global consumption, it was called Paradoja de Jevons.

As already explained, one of the most promoted aspects of the Internet of Things is the improvement it will bring to the comfort of users. For this, arguments are often given about how easy it will be for a refrigerator to inform us that there is a lack of milk, or that this or that cheese that we always consume is over. But of course, in the real world nothing is "free". And this service has an environmental cost. Then the dichotomy between environment and comfort appears. What should be prioritized? The comfort of the fridge reminding me that milk is lacking, or even more so that I send it to buy it in my place? or on the contrary, the care of the environment, in which case functions like the one mentioned should not take place?

At this point we come to the thorny question of specifying that we understand comfort. The Royal Spanish Academy defines the term as "Well being with material comfort", although of course this definition has a high degree of subjectivity.

Understanding this term properly is crucial for designers, since ultimately it is the product user who has the last word. And it is clear that a product that offers greater comfort, will be more valued by the user.

But how far do we go in the search for more comfort? Many of the objects that today give us this quality - and which we are not willing to give up voluntarily - until a few decades ago were hardly considered necessary. If you ask the majority of people who are 60 or 70 years old today, they will surely answer that they lived in more austere conditions when they were young and that they did not consider that they lived without comfort. That is to say, that comfort is subjective, according to the time and the context.

But will the Global context be reaching its limits? As already mentioned, in order for the Internet of Things to be able to be implemented and mass-produced, a huge transformation of the products is necessary - both the users and the ones that serve as support for these to work - which will probably require an phenomenal natural capital. We call this all the raw materials and energy necessary to transform them into the required products. Without counting of course with the energy that will consume all this gigantic network of permanently interconnected devices. These thorny aspects are often overlooked.

Precision electronics, lasers, wind turbines and many other new technology devices need many specific minerals to function. The United States Geological Survey (USGS for its acronym) has under monitoring the reserves and global consumption of 58 Non-Renewable Natural Resources (RNNR) -minerals, energy and metals-, and according to information from the agency many of these are not they have reserves to continue increasing their extraction significantly. A similar situation occurs with the so-called Rare Earth Neodymium, Cerium and Lantano are some of these elements very necessary for the current technology. China has a practically monopoly on its production, and since 2010 it has been applying export restrictions. All this suggests that the world can not count on the quantity and at an affordable price what it needs, and this happens today, with a much lower demand than expected. Recalling that the term Sustainability (or Sustainability) refers not only to the environmental but also to the social and economic, it is necessary to mention these two additional aspects to analyze the sustainability of the Internet of Things.

In this sense, it is important to understand the tendency of the prices of some of the minerals and metals to estimate how they would behave in a foreseeable future scenario of greater demand.

Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of GMO - one of the world's largest asset managers - surprised everyone when he published a shocking report in which he meticulously dissected the world's non-renewable resource situation. Already at the beginning of the report, it echoes a devastating fact: in just 8 years, 100 years of downward trends in commodity prices have reversed. To do so, it uses a GMO commodity index, which synthesizes the behavior of 33 commodities, and where one can observe the increase they have suffered as a medium-term trend. Therefore, a scenario where the greatest demand for raw materials will be hit with physical limits, is it possible to ask whether the massification of the IoT will be a reality, or will it only be restricted to a small group of the world population, widening the current inequality gap? .

Perhaps for the general public the concept of the Cloud evokes something ethereal, intangible. But you can be sure that behind each megabyte that circulates there are very physical elements that must exist, and that they must coexist in a highly complex structure so that they work as expected.

It is necessary to reflect on comfort, a thorny and directly related aspect. So far, it can be said that the human being in general terms has been raising its threshold of comfort. Of course there are huge numbers of people in the world who are far from that threshold, but we can say that in general terms the human being has managed to increase it. It is also true that much of that comfort is related to possessing certain physical objects. In any case, what is undoubted is that the increase in comfort brought with it an increase in the use of different natural resources. In short, a greater environmental impact.

Today we are reaching the crossroads of having defined a very high level of comfort -in environmental terms-, which due to an incipient but growing restriction of natural resources, is becoming increasingly difficult for all of humanity to reach. The Ecological Footprint is an indicator that clearly shows this situation, where to compensate the current global consumption 1.4 worlds are needed. And this result is an average, where an important sector of the world population is marginalized from the parameters of consumption -and comfort- of the developed countries. If everyone lived according to these, it is estimated that 4 earth planets would be required to sustain it.

Internet of Things, as it is promoted today, aims to raise the comfort standard even more. Will we be able to use it as a tool to improve the environment and society, incorporating the excluded of today and tomorrow? Or on the contrary, our insistence on wanting everything, in a finite world, will cause the IoT to be used by a small minority of the population, increasing the impact on our planet and increasing the gap between the fortunate and the dispossessed.

In short, only time will tell how to implement the IoT. What is certain is that in order for it to grow as announced by the gurus of the issue, it will be necessary for the current model to continue in force. It is the scenario that in the simulations is usually called Business as Usual (expression that could be translated into Business as Always). It is the current model. It is, in short, the model that until now has managed to circumvent the limits of physics. How long will it be able to do it?

#living #fact #enjoyment #humility #generosity #history #personalization #definity #living #equality #writing #forwarding #step #changingtheworld #reach #stars #fear #leadership #reach #innovative #lifephilosophy #socialnetworks #digitalmarketing #marketing #challenges #goals #campaign #campaigngoals #success #networking #content #socialmedia #sustainability #sustainable #corporatesocialresponsible #marketing #life #goals #goalsinlife #philosophy #winsdom #satisfaction #digitallife #chilhood #dreams #artificialintelligence #marketingtools #ROI #CTR #efficience #digitallife #magic #digitaltransformation #dreams #dreamscometrhough #observation #creativity #outofthebox #livinlavidaloca #happiness #satisfaction #success #behappy #enjoylife #goalsincarreer #selfawareness #becrazy #sucessful #listen #revolution #dropsofwisdom #lifeadvice #behavior #motivation #communication #transformations #magics