Scottish university to slash environmental harm of technology

The University of Glasgow has transformed its approach to computing science degrees in a bid to cut the sector’s emissions.

From this year the university will offer undergraduate computing students “specific material” on the environmental implications of the systems they design and develop.

The institution has said the course will be the first in the UK to equip students with the tools to understand how to tackle the sector’s climate impact.

Professor Wim Vanderbauwhede, who leads the school of computing science’s low carbon and sustainable computing group, said: “Computing has transformed society in my lifetime, enabling huge advances across science and medicine and providing us with new ways to instantly communicate, collaborate and share ideas.

“However, the many advantages we enjoy today as a result have come at the cost of a major contribution to the carbon emissions causing the climate crisis. The ever-increasing complexity of integrated circuits, and the reduction of repairability in favour of planned obsolescence, has outpaced our ability to use every generation of computers in the most energy-efficient ways.

“Rethinking our approach to education is one way to help ensure that the next generation of computing scientists, who will be increasingly greatly impacted by the effects of the climate crisis, can be equipped with tools to help them tackle it.”

It is hoped the updated curriculum will help next-generation computing scientists play a leading role in reducing the ecological harms of the digital world, which researchers believe could slow down the journey to net zero.

Researchers estimate that, by 2040, emissions from computing could consume more than half of the world’s carbon budget available to limit global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Currently, powering computers and data centres are the main source of environmental harm, accounting for more than two thirds of the sector’s carbon emissions. Around a quarter of further emissions come from the production of computing hardware, which is often replaced before it reaches the end of its useful lifespan.

And, as devices are made of different materials, they are also difficult and expensive to recycle, adding to their environmental impact.  

Dr Lauritz Thamsen,  the school's sustainability subject adviser, said: “Quickly and thoroughly decarbonising all sectors, including computing, is vitally important to limit global warming and its disastrous effects. We are therefore proud to be working to give our students the understanding and skills they will need to play their part in reducing computing’s footprint when they graduate and go on to work in industry or research."

The university also plans to adopt a similar approach for its advanced and postgraduate courses. From next year, it will offer a course on scalable and sustainable cloud computing for the first time. The course was fully booked “within a couple of hours”, Dr Thamsen said, reflecting the appetite for the subject.

The restructuring of the computing programme follows on from other climate-friendly schemes by the institution. Earlier this year, along with Edinburgh University, it founded the Scotland Beyond Net Zero project, which aims to help Scotland meet its net zero ambitions.

The university also aims to reach net zero by 2030, 15 years before the Scottish Government's target.