"French regulator calls for accountability of Big Tech to improve environmental footprint"

Big Tech should be made accountable for their environmental footprint at an EU level, by being incentivised to design digital services in a sustainable way, said Arcep’s President Laure de la Raudière, in a speech on Thursday (30 May).

The regulator called for accountability of online content providers regarding their ecological impact, on broadband consumption in her annual speech on the health of the country’s telecom sector.

“Autoplay and infinite social media feeds are not good sustainable designs,” of digital services said de la Raudière, repeating her position shared in January at BFM Business, calling for “holding Big Tech accountable for their [induced] environmental footprint.”

Given data traffic is increasing by 25% per year, Big Tech should be made accountable for their unsustainable business model, they should “integrate in practice sustainable design of their digital services,” she said. [...]

Warning that electricity consumption figures could skyrocket in the future there is a need to act now, she said.

Arcep published in May jointly with other regulatory authorities a framework to help product owners, project managers , designers and the like to analyse how sustainable their services are.