- 1Manufacturing accounts for 70 to 80% of the IT carbon footprint of a French company.
- 2Extending equipment lifespan from 4 to 6 years cuts the footprint by 30 to 50% and saves money.
- 3Refurbished equipment emits 70% less than new for the same standard office use.
- 4Choosing the data centre changes cloud emissions by a factor of 5 to 10, depending on the country.
"How much of our carbon footprint is IT?" We hear this question more and more often, especially now that IT directors are being brought into CSR (corporate social responsibility) programmes, and the answer is almost always a surprise. Digital technology accounts for 3 to 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, as much as air transport, and that share is growing by 6% a year (a study by ADEME, the French Agency for Ecological Transition, and Arcep, the French electronic communications regulator), driven by the boom in cloud, AI and video. What surprises people is the split between manufacturing and use, which is far from what most expect.
The digital carbon footprint in France: three figures that change everything
Why switching off your screen in the evening is not enough - and where to act effectively.
The counter-intuitive French case: thanks to the nuclear-based electricity mix, use has little weight. The real lever is the lifespan of the equipment fleet - going from 4 to 6 years means 30 to 50% less digital carbon footprint.
1Where digital emissions come from: worldwide, mainly use; in France, mainly manufacturing
This figure comes from work by The Shift Project (a French think tank) and ADEME. Worldwide, about 40% of digital emissions come from manufacturing equipment (user devices, networks, data centres) and about 60% from use (the electricity consumed by data centres, networks and user devices). In France, thanks to a very low-carbon electricity mix (nuclear plus renewables), manufacturing dominates even more: it accounts for 70 to 80% of the IT carbon footprint of a French company.
In France, the electricity mix changes which levers matter most
This matters for any reduction strategy (in French): in France, measures that target use (switching off screens, limiting emails with attachments, deleting unnecessary data) have only a marginal impact compared with measures that target the equipment fleet (extending lifespan, refurbishment, pooling). The French electricity mix changes the order of priority among levers compared with a country that relies heavily on fossil fuels, such as Germany or the United States.
2Manufacturing, not use, drives the footprint of equipment
Manufacturing a laptop emits between 200 and 400 kg of CO2 (mineral extraction, processing, assembly in Asia, transport), whereas using it for 4 years in France emits around 6 kg of CO2, or about 1.5 kg a year according to ADEME, because French electricity is low in carbon. Manufacturing therefore accounts for more than 95% of the total footprint. The same reasoning applies to smartphones, screens, printers and all other electronic equipment.
Manufacturing accounts for 80% of the carbon footprint of a PC
Extending lifespan is the No. 1 lever in France
User devices: the main emission source
The consequence is counter-intuitive: switching off your PC in the evening helps, but only marginally. Extending the lifespan of equipment from 4 to 6 years reduces the footprint by 30 to 50%, which makes it the most effective and the cheapest lever for decarbonising IT.
3The cloud: data centres and their electricity mix
The cloud has shifted part of companies' emissions to the data centres of their providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud). These data centres use very large amounts of electricity for computing and cooling, and water to remove the heat. The footprint of a cloud service depends mainly on the electricity mix of the country where the data centre is located: a service hosted in France (a mix that is 90% decarbonised) emits 5 to 10 times less than one hosted in the United States or Germany (a mix with a large fossil fuel share).
Choosing the data centre: a factor of 5 to 10 depending on the country
IT directors must factor this into their hosting decisions. Choosing a cloud provider that hosts in France or Scandinavia (hydroelectricity) rather than in the United States divides the footprint of cloud services by 5 to 10. When we carry out a carbon footprint assessment, we systematically ask for the location of the data centres and for the cloud providers' emissions reports (AWS, Azure and Google Cloud all publish them). It is often the first time the IT director has looked at this figure, and surprise is a common reaction.
Extending the lifespan of a workstation from 4 to 6 years reduces its footprint by 30 to 50%, the most effective step in digital sobriety.
4Extending equipment lifespan is the first lever
Refurbishment: 70% lower footprint for the same use
A digital worker's day in carbon terms
Use only (excluding device manufacturing) · 6 moments, 175 g CO₂e
Power-up + mailbox synchronised
Camera on, 4 participants
4G video, 30 min
Automatic syncs running in the background
≈ 3 g per LLM query (vs 0.3 g Google)
5 emails with 5 MB PDFs
Use weighs little compared with manufacturing (which accounts for 70-80% of the footprint of a workstation). But HD video calls and generative AI shake up the ranking: 1 LLM query ≈ 10 Google searches.
Extending lifespan is the first lever (in French), by a long way. Keep workstations for 5-6 years instead of 3-4, repair rather than replace, and buy refurbished equipment where possible. A refurbished computer emits around 70% less than a new one, because it avoids the manufacturing phase. For standard office use (email, web, office software, video calls), a refurbished PC that is 2-3 years old is perfectly adequate. Resistance to change often has more to do with company culture (a new device as a status symbol) than with real technical needs.
5Generative AI: a fast-growing emission source, still marginal in most footprints
The rapid spread of generative AI in companies (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude) adds a new source of consumption. Training large language models takes vast amounts of energy and computing resources. Day-to-day use is less energy-intensive per query, but volume becomes significant when a company rolls out an AI assistant to 500 or 5,000 users. Measurements published by providers remain scarce (Google reports 0.24 Wh of energy for a median text query on Gemini), but the trend is clear: according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity consumption by data centres, driven primarily by AI, is expected to more than double between 2024 and 2030, from 415 to around 945 TWh. This is an emerging emission source that carbon footprint assessments will have to capture in ever finer detail. For a first estimate, our AI carbon footprint calculator estimates the footprint of queries by model and by task.
6Including IT in a carbon footprint assessment: the data to collect
To include IT properly in a carbon footprint assessment, you need to collect data on the equipment fleet (number and type of workstations, screens, smartphones and on-premises servers), average lifespan by category, cloud consumption (supplier invoices, ideally with their emissions reports) and, for network services, the volume of data exchanged. ADEME has published emission factors specific to digital technology in its Base Empreinte database, and tools such as Arcep's product category rules (RCP in French) help refine the calculations.
7Key takeaways
In France, most of a company's IT emissions come from manufacturing equipment, not from using it. Because the French electricity mix is low in carbon, measures on use have a marginal effect, so the real lever is how the equipment fleet is managed.
- Manufacturing accounts for 70-80% of the footprint in France. A laptop emits 200-400 kg CO2 during manufacturing, compared with about 6 kg over 4 years of use
- Extending lifespan from 4 to 6 years reduces the footprint by 30-50%: it is the No. 1 lever, and it generates savings
- Refurbished equipment emits around 70% less than new: adding refurbished equipment to the IT purchasing policy is the second most effective lever
- The choice of data centre matters: a factor of 5 to 10 depending on location (France versus the United States or Germany). In France, a locally hosted cloud is a carbon advantage
- Generative AI is a rising emission source: consumption is growing fast but is still marginal in most carbon footprints, so it is worth monitoring and using in a targeted way
8Key takeaways
- Manufacturing accounts for 70 to 80% of the footprint in France. A laptop emits 200-400 kg CO2 during manufacturing, compared with about 6 kg over 4 years of use.
- Extending lifespan from 4 to 6 years reduces the footprint by 30 to 50%: it is the No. 1 lever, and it generates savings.
- Refurbished equipment emits around 70% less than new: adding refurbished equipment to the IT purchasing policy is the second most effective lever.
- The choice of data centre matters: a factor of 5 to 10 depending on location (France versus the United States or Germany). In France, a locally hosted cloud is a carbon advantage.
- Generative AI is a rising emission source: consumption is growing fast but is still marginal in most carbon footprints, so it is worth monitoring and using in a targeted way.
Before signing a new hardware contract, check the average age of your fleet and the electricity mix of your cloud. These two questions lead to an IT carbon footprint that is 30 to 50% lower within a year, without giving up performance or user comfort. An IT director who asks them turns a replacement budget into an investment in digital sobriety, with no need for coaching or activist rhetoric: it is simply a rational calculation over the life cycle.
