Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Internet

摘要

The objective of this study was to assess the life cycle environmental impacts of the Internet infrastructure in terms of the related primary energy consumption and the emissions of criteria pollutants (CO_2, NO_x, SO_2). Looking at a local university network and at the overall US infrastructure, the production and use phase of the Internet related equipment were assessed using two approaches to Life Cycle Assessment: Process Life Cycle Assessment (Process LCA) and Input Output Life Cycle Assessment (IO-LCA).