Research projects
Our Digital Decarbonisation Design Group (DDDG) supports the efforts of a team of highly committed, dynamic, early career researchers as they seek to tackle some of the major practical challenges to decarbonising global digital infrastructure and ecosystems.
Leveraging the knowledge of leading academics in the field and the insights of external experts on the Strategic Advisory Group, the DDDG is taking action to stave off the worse case scenario of a ‘data doomsday’ energy crisis.
The digital ecosystem is made up of a set of interrelated dynamics at the micro level (individuals, groups, teams), meso level (organisations, networks, stakeholder groups) and macro level (societal norms and beliefs, industry, policy). Understanding these dynamics individually, and in relation to one another is essential to combat the rising financial and environmental costs of digital waste.
Each doctoral research project has a primary focus that when brought together intersect different ecosystem levels for a transdisciplinary approach, which is integral to addressing climate change and achieving net zero.
The impact of new technologies adoption on creative industries production: How to manage positive and negative environmental impacts?
The creative industries are among the largest and most digital of the UK’s industrial sectors.
Within creative industries we are witnessing two contrasting effects: the fast adoption of technology is, to some extent, reducing the carbon impact of otherwise high-impact sectors whilst simultaneously stimulating increased reliance on the energy-sapping processes of data rendering, server farms and audience-streaming that contribute significantly to the data CO2 footprint.
Despite the centrality of the creative industries to climate change, little academic research or policy currently exists for creative industries to reach net zero.
Working closely with research partners, this project is investigating the impact and potential of digital adoption for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from creative industries; comprising an assessment of the impact of creative technologies for digital decarbonisation and how this transformation can be managed in a sustainable way for all parties.
- Doctoral researcher: Emily Cox
- Supervisory team: Graham Hitchen, Lisa Jackson, Kate Broadhurst and Ian Hodgkinson
Advancing public service design in the age of digitalisation: Can public service ecosystems manage digital decarbonisation under austerity?
This project is exploring the intricate interplay between digital technology integration and sustainability within a critical public service ecosystem: healthcare.
As governments worldwide accelerate the adoption of digital technologies to enhance service delivery (e.g. service automation, smart cities, connected infrastructure etc), understanding the environmental consequences becomes paramount.
By examining organisational practices at the meso-level and unravelling the systemic interactions across the macro-level institutional framework, the project is set to contribute a holistic understanding of the digital public service landscape and value (co)creation across the data-scape in an international healthcare setting.
The project will deliver benefits for people, place and planet by shaping a more environmentally conscious future for digital innovation.
- Doctoral researcher: Miri Lee
- Supervisory team: Kate Broadhurst, Nicola Paine, Ian Hodgkinson and Tom Jackson.
Lifelong learning and shareable models: How to reduce the energy footprint of AI and contribute to a sustainable decarbonised future?
Current AI models are not designed to reuse and share knowledge.
When conditions change (eg data distributions, locations or platforms), retraining needs to occur from scratch. In some cases, like for foundation models or for complex robotics tasks, the process requires very large amounts of data and energy.
Recent advances towards lifelong learning and shareable models promise to create a new efficient AI landscape in which machine-learned knowledge can be built incrementally and worldwide with optimised energy use.
This project is advancing the latest lifelong learning and shareable AI models to contribute to reducing the energy footprint of AI. In doing so, the project will help to maximise the value of AI developments and reduce its environmental impact.
- Doctoral researcher: Inish D-Souza
- Supervisory team: Andrea Soltoggio, Vitor Castro, Rebecca Higginson and Tom Jackson
Systems storytelling of digital decarbonisation: What role do stories play, and which need to be told, for change across the digital ecosystem?
Systems thinking and systems mapping are essential in unpacking tensions, trade-offs and dilemmas in the complex issues around digital decarbonisation and system change.
As identified by the Design Council (Beyond Net Zero, 2021), effective transition to net zero and beyond requires system thinking to see how everything is interconnected in a bigger picture and zoom between the micro and macro and across silos; and, storytelling to create and tell great stories about what might be possible and why this is important, which is needed for buy-in from all levels and the tenacity to see change through.
Digital decarbonisation is complex involving competing goals, trade-offs and dilemmas. Using systems approaches can help unpack these tensions and interactions in the journey towards digital decarbonisation.
This project draws on storytelling that offers a powerful tool to communicate these complexities and facilitate system changes. The project is examining how combining systems thinking and storytelling can help individuals and companies understand these complexities and translate them into actionable insights for digital decarbonisation.
- Doctoral researcher: Thomai Papadopoulou
- Supervisory team: Thomas Jun, Mike Wilson, Graham Hitchen and Tom Jackson
The impact of digital decarbonisation on physical and mental health: What role does stress-associated climate change play?
Psychological stress exposure is a risk factor for a range of long-term health conditions. A prominent, real-world and ongoing stressor is climate change, which can impact our physical and mental health and yet remains largely unexplored.
As society progresses decarbonisation efforts towards net zero, such efforts may also act as an inadvertent stressor for individuals across the digital ecosystem. This project addresses these limitations by examining the human and environmental benefits of digital technologies (eg wearables, social media, voice assistants etc) against the potential negative impacts (eg data security and privacy, data CO2, dark data etc) for individuals and the environment.
In doing so, the project is investigating the different stress-related implications of digital decarbonisation and is exploring the impacts of the digital decarbonisation movement on physical and mental health across a wide range of individuals.
- Doctoral researcher: K-Tricia Isaacs
- Supervisory team: Nicola Paine, Rebecca Higginson, Lisa Jackson and Ian Hodgkinson