Responsible digital and green IT: the complete guide

At a time when our professional and personal lives are shaped by screens, notifications and online services, it is essential to rethink our relationship with technology. Behind the apparent immateriality of our clicks lie data centers, undersea cables, rare earths, and an environmental footprint that keeps growing. To bring the digital transition and the ecological transition together, government decisions and initiatives taken by companies are a real pillar.

Responsible digital (green IT): definition and three key dimensions

Responsible digital, also called green IT or sustainable IT, is a continuous improvement approach that aims to reduce the ecological, social and economic footprint of digital technology. In practice, it means designing, deploying and using digital technologies while limiting their negative impacts as much as possible, and guaranteeing accessibility and inclusion for all users.

This approach traditionally rests on three dimensions that complement each other:

• The environmental dimension: reducing digital technology's ecological footprint by tackling energy consumption, resource extraction and electronic waste.
• The economic dimension: optimizing costs, streamlining equipment and promoting efficient use of technology.
• The social dimension: guaranteeing digital inclusion, accessibility, data protection and ethics in the use of technology.

Digital technology is now a priority topic in the fight against climate change. Indeed, digital technology accounts for 4.4% of France's carbon footprint in 2022, or 29.5 million tonnes of CO2 emitted over the year, and 11% of national electricity consumption (ADEME-Arcep, 2025). And if nothing is done, its carbon footprint could increase by 45% by 2030 and triple by 2050. Responsible digital therefore sits at the heart of the many environmental challenges we face today.

The 6 action levers of responsible digital

There are several concrete levers for putting a responsible digital approach into practice! They include extending equipment lifespan, digital sobriety in usage, eco-design of services, responsible data center management, and digital inclusion.

Here is some information on each of these levers:

• Extending equipment lifespan: this is lever number one. 50% of digital technology's carbon footprint comes from devices (smartphones, computers, screens, tablets), including 42% for the manufacturing phase alone, against only 8% for their use (ADEME-Arcep, 2025). To picture the stakes, imagine each device's "ecological backpack": behind a 2 kg computer hide 600 kg of minerals, 200 kg of fossil fuels and thousands of liters of fresh water used to manufacture it. Behind a 200 g smartphone are 70 different materials, 50 different metals and 4 trips around the world before it reaches our pockets. Buying a refurbished phone rather than a new one reduces annual environmental impact by 55% to 91% depending on the indicators (ADEME). It is worth noting that 113 million unused smartphones are sleeping in French drawers: a huge pool of resources for the refurbishing industry.
• Critical resources and geopolitical issues: manufacturing our equipment uses critical raw materials, including 17 metals called "rare earths" for their exceptional properties. The planet now consumes 130,000 tonnes a year, while only 1% is recycled and the stocks took billions of years to form. Beyond the environmental side, these resources raise a major human issue: people speak of "blood minerals" because some (cobalt, coltan, tin) are mined in armed conflict zones, sometimes by children. Rethinking our digital purchases also means becoming aware of this hidden side.
• Digital sobriety in usage: each French household has on average 10 digital devices with screens in 2023 (Baromètre du numérique 2025). On top of that come usage habits: high-definition video streaming, unnecessary emails, duplicate stored files. Generative AI is upsetting this equation. More than a third of French people aged 12 and over now use generative AI regularly, and even 77% of 18-24 year-olds (Baromètre du numérique 2025). Yet each request to a large language model uses 5 to 10 times more energy than a classic Google search, and training a single large model can emit several hundred tonnes of CO2. Direct consequence: greenhouse gas emissions from data centers rose by 11% in 2023, against 9% in 2022, mainly because of AI (Vie publique). Digital sobriety means asking yourself, before each use, whether it is really necessary, and if it is, choosing the least energy-hungry version. To go further on everyday habits, see our dedicated article on eco-friendly habits to reduce the impact of digital technology.
• Eco-design of digital services: a website or an app can be designed to be more or less resource-hungry. The General Framework for the Eco-design of Digital Services (RGESN), published in May 2024 by Arcep, Arcom and ADEME, gives designers a concrete framework: limit page weight, favor useful content, optimize images and videos, reduce server requests. The goal: reduce the environmental footprint from the design stage, rather than trying to offset it afterward.
• Data centers and infrastructure: they now account for 46% of digital technology's carbon footprint in France, against 16% in the previous estimate (Numérique écoresponsable, 2025). This spectacular rise comes from counting data centers located abroad but used for French needs (53% of our usage!), and from the explosion in cloud and generative AI needs. The water consumption of these centers also rose by 19% in 2023 alone. Greening this infrastructure (low-carbon electricity mix, waste heat recovery, adiabatic cooling) is a major project.
• Digital inclusion and accessibility: be careful not to reduce responsible digital to its environmental dimension alone! The social pillar matters just as much. 13 million French people are affected by digital illiteracy, meaning they struggle with digital tools. Guaranteeing accessibility for people with disabilities, fighting the regional digital divide, training people far from digital technology: these are societal issues that are an integral part of a responsible digital approach.

Why adopt a responsible digital approach in your company?

There are so many levers to make our digital habits more sober for a reason! Responsible digital brings many benefits. It allows for a lower environmental impact, significant economic advantages, but also better digital well-being and a stronger employer brand.

Reduce the environmental footprint of digital technology in your company

Responsible digital initiatives significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, rare metal extraction and electronic waste. To give an order of magnitude, the average carbon footprint of digital technology is 253 kg CO2 equivalent per year for a French person, equal to 2,259 km (about 1,400 miles) driven by car (ADEME). Extending the lifespan of all smartphones in France by one year would alone bring considerable environmental gains.

Save on IT costs

Responsible digital very often brings real savings! By extending equipment lifespan, favoring refurbished devices, removing unused software licenses and optimizing cloud resources, companies can cut their IT costs by 20% to 40%. Buying a fleet of refurbished smartphones rather than new ones means an immediate saving of 30 to 70% on the purchase price. On top of that come energy savings: a well-configured workstation (sleep mode, switched off in the evening, reasonable screen brightness) uses up to 30% less electricity.

Improve employees' digital well-being

Beyond the environmental and economic dimensions, well-being is also positively affected! Digital sobriety goes hand in hand with less information overload. Fewer unnecessary emails, fewer back-to-back video meetings, fewer constant notifications: all direct benefits for concentration, mental health and quality of work. Several studies show that a French manager spends an average of 5.5 hours a day handling emails. Setting up a charter for reasonable use frees up useful time and reduces the stress of hyperconnection.

Finally, committing to a responsible digital approach has become a real asset for your employer brand. Younger generations are particularly sensitive to the ecological and social commitment of their future employer, and customers are increasingly so in their purchasing or vendor selection criteria.

Responsible digital: the challenges and concrete solutions

While it is clear that responsible digital has many advantages, it is not so simple to put in place. Its promotion faces many challenges.

First, there is a lack of visibility of the impact. Unlike fuel in a tank or waste in a bin, the footprint of digital technology is largely invisible to the end user. When we send an email or stream a series, nothing tells us the energy used, the servers involved or the resources extracted to make our device. This invisibility greatly slows awareness. To ensure a fair transition, it is essential to make the impact tangible, through measurement tools, digital carbon assessments and awareness raising. Digital sobriety must be everyone's business. To take action day to day, see our eco-friendly habits to reduce the impact of digital technology.

The second challenge, subtler but just as important, is the rebound effect. In practice, the rebound effect is the phenomenon where the energy or resource savings made possible by a new technology are canceled out, or even exceeded, by the multiplication of uses it causes. A telling example: going paperless was supposed to reduce paper consumption; in practice, it blew up the volume of data stored, exchanged and backed up twice. Another current example: processors have become far more energy-efficient over 20 years, but our uses (HD video, generative AI, connected objects) have grown much faster. Responsible digital is therefore not only about using more sober tools, but also about questioning the very relevance of our uses.

Before even making responsible digital accessible, you need to raise public awareness, starting at a young age. It can be useful to create digital educational kits for children and talk to them about the importance of screens, time spent online and where their devices come from. Launching small challenges with rewards (a screen-free day, an "empty inbox" challenge) can make children and adults want to learn more. To raise awareness as widely as possible, you need long-term support, which is why you must keep raising awareness, even in companies!

Fortunately, leading organizations have emerged to support this transition. The Institut du Numérique Responsable (INR), created in 2018 in La Rochelle, has become the reference think tank on the subject in France. It brings together researchers, industry and associations around three axes: reducing digital technology's footprint, using digital technology to reduce humanity's footprint, and promoting inclusive and ethical digital technology. The INR provides a free MOOC, a framework, and a directory of experts. On the government side, MiNumEco, the interministerial mission led by DINUM and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, offers the website ecoresponsable.numerique.gouv.fr, which centralizes good practices for organizations.

Another solution to consider is innovation! Many start-ups are betting on responsible digital. The company Fairphone, for example, created a modular smartphone that can be repaired component by component and is made under fair social conditions. The company Commown offers a product-as-a-service model: you rent your IT equipment instead of buying it, which pushes the provider to design durable and repairable devices. On the software side, players like GreenIT.fr (founded by Frédéric Bordage, one of the French pioneers on the subject) or Ecoindex let you assess and improve the environmental performance of websites. To identify the people moving these topics forward in France, see our selection of 6 personalities to follow in responsible digital.

Putting responsible digital into practice in your company: a practical guide

REEN, AGEC, RGESN: the regulatory framework to know

Government policies have been put in place to make it easier to implement responsible digital in companies. Here is a recap of the schemes and rules to know:

• The REEN law (France's law on reducing the environmental footprint of digital technology): enacted on November 15, 2021, it is built around 5 main objectives: raise awareness and train people on responsible digital issues, limit device replacement, develop ecologically virtuous uses, promote less energy-hungry data centers, and set up a responsible digital strategy in local territories. At the local authority level, municipalities and inter-municipal bodies of more than 50,000 inhabitants have had to have a quantified and measurable responsible digital strategy since January 1, 2025. To go further on this aspect, see our dedicated article on local authorities and the REEN law.
• The AGEC law (anti-waste law for a circular economy): since March 2021, public buyers have been required to acquire between 20% and 100% of goods from reuse, or that include recycled materials, depending on product categories. This includes IT equipment. A direct opportunity for the refurbished sector.
• The repairability index and the durability index: since 2021, smartphones, laptops, TVs and other electronic equipment display a score out of 10 showing how easy they are to repair. Since 2025, this index is gradually moving toward a more complete durability index, which includes the device's reliability and longevity in addition to its repairability. For now it applies to TVs since January 8, 2025 and washing machines since April 8, 2025 (Service Public). For smartphones, a European energy label has applied since June 2025. These are all concrete benchmarks to guide responsible purchasing, in companies and at home.
• The General Framework for the Eco-design of Digital Services (RGESN): published in May 2024 by Arcep, Arcom and ADEME, it gives designers of websites, apps and online services a grid of 78 criteria to reduce environmental footprint from the design stage. Though not mandatory for the private sector, it is becoming an essential reference and a sign of seriousness in public tenders.
• The universal USB-C charger: since the end of 2024, all phones, tablets and cameras sold in the European Union must have a USB Type-C port. From spring 2026, this requirement will also extend to laptops (Numérique écoresponsable). A concrete measure to reduce the electronic waste caused by the multiplication of cables.

6 concrete initiatives to roll out in your company

Putting responsible digital in place does not depend only on government policy. Indeed, companies' CSR initiatives also play a very important role in this process. Each company can set up its own measures to create a framework favorable to responsible digital. These can be technical changes as well as actions on usage.

• Extend the lifespan of your IT estate. Rather than systematically replacing computers every 3 years, set a goal of at least 5 years, even 7 years with maintenance and part replacement (battery, SSD). For new purchases, favor suppliers offering high repairability scores. For replacements, include refurbished devices: product quality has improved enormously and many French players (Ecodair, Recommerce, Back Market Pro...) now offer professional warranties equivalent to new equipment.
• Set up a usage charter and a good practices guide. Many users do not know the right habits. A simple charter can cover: regularly cleaning your mailbox, turning off unnecessary notifications, preferring Wi-Fi to 4G, closing unused tabs, shutting down your workstation in the evening, limiting heavy attachments in favor of shared links. You can go further by offering video-free days or email-free time slots to support concentration.
• Sort and clean up your digital assets. A large share of the data stored on company servers is dark data, data that no longer serves any purpose. Organize an annual "Digital Cleanup" day: deleting duplicates, archiving obsolete files, closing dormant user accounts, uninstalling unused applications. Concrete, measurable and unifying.
• Rethink your digital purchasing policy and hosting. When renewing software or choosing hosting, include environmental criteria. Favor cloud providers that commit to a low-carbon energy mix and publish their indicators (PUE, WUE). French hosts like OVHcloud or Scaleway, largely powered by a low-carbon electricity mix, are often a good compromise. For your websites, require compliance with the RGESN in your specifications.
• Structure your approach with the Responsible Digital Label (NR Label). For companies that want to go beyond one-off good practices, there is now a reference certification: the NR Label, co-built by the Institut du Numérique Responsable and France IT, and operated by Agence LUCIE. It offers two levels of commitment: level 1, accessible to very small businesses, SMEs and organizations just getting started, valid for 2 years; and level 2, more demanding, valid for 3 years, with an external audit by SGS, Bureau Veritas or Baker Tilly. The framework was developed in partnership with ADEME, the Ministry of Ecological Transition and WWF. Obtaining the label means structuring your approach (turnkey methodology, 2- or 3-year action plan), showcasing your commitment to customers and employees, and anticipating regulatory changes.

Did you know? Some companies have set up "Digital Detox Days", days when no internal email can be sent and video meetings are replaced by in-person or phone catch-ups. Besides reducing the digital footprint, these days let employees reconnect with the essentials and see the effect of information overload for themselves.

Engage and mobilize your employees over the long term

Beyond the measures to put in place, it is important to create a sense of belonging to a community to encourage collective engagement. To do so, everyone has to feel concerned by the environmental and social issues of digital technology. Here are some examples:

• Build on themed days. Dedicating a day to responsible digital lets your employees learn more about the subject while spending time together. March is traditionally the peak month for responsible digital in companies, with Digital Cleanup Day (the second Saturday of March), a true worldwide digital cleanup event. You can also build on the European Sustainable Development Week (in September/October), the Green IT Day, or create your own internal event. The more responsible digital awareness workshops you run, the more your employees will want to follow you in this approach!

Here are examples of activities for a day dedicated to responsible digital, and you can find 9 concrete ideas to run your Digital Cleanup Day in a company in our dedicated article:

• "Digital Collage" workshop (Fresque du Numérique): a collaborative 3-hour workshop that helps participants understand all the impacts of digital technology and identify levers for action. A proven format, with trained facilitators available throughout France.
• Repair and refurbishing stand: how many of us have an old smartphone or a broken computer sleeping in a closet? Bringing in a Repair Café or a local refurbishing player can give these devices new life, and collect the ones your employees would like to donate!
• Digital sobriety awareness workshop: organizing a responsible digital activity or a responsible digital workshop with a recognized player like the Institut du Numérique Responsable (INR), a specialized consultant or a turnkey format will give your commitment even more credibility!
• Create awareness campaigns. You can use internal communication to showcase employees already committed to a sober approach. For example, you can print a photo of one of your employees and write a few lines about them to highlight their commitment (IT equipment kept for 7 years, empty inbox, etc.). Display this portrait in a high-traffic area of your company so that as many employees as possible see it. Seeing some employees recognized will make others want to commit in the same way. You can even widen your impact by publishing a LinkedIn post to show that responsible digital matters in your company!
• Create challenges within your company. We know that when there is a competition with a prize at stake, it is easier to attract motivated people! So why not create contests between your employees? For example, you can launch an "empty inbox" challenge, a "who will delete the most useless GB from the server" challenge, or a team competition on equipment lifespan. A competition can create that community spirit by pushing everyone to do their best!
• Serious games: the most effective method to raise your employees' awareness of responsible digital. Have you ever tried serious games? They make serious content more appealing to learn thanks to fun, educational goals! This is the case for awareness escape games, which can be played online (to avoid polluting travel) or in person! Compared with a classic workshop or a conference, the serious escape game captures attention more actively: puzzles to solve as a team, videos, quizzes, role-play scenarios... A range of activities that easily engages your employees and anchors learning for the long term.

At The Wokies, we designed a turnkey serious escape game for responsible digital awareness, which can be deployed in 1.5 hours, in French or English, for 3 to 500 employees at the same time. More than 100 companies and 15,000 employees have already been trained through this format. You can also explore our activities on Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence, three topics often handled together in digital CSR efforts. Discover our responsible digital serious escape game.

For more information or to book a demo, you can contact us at The Wokies.

Conclusion: making responsible digital a collective reflex

The future of responsible digital depends on everyone's involvement! Government decisions, through the REEN law or the RGESN, and company initiatives have a central role to play in raising awareness among employees and citizens. These bodies play an awareness-raising role, because in reality it is mostly personal and collective actions that protect the environment. Without the involvement of communities, we cannot move toward truly sustainable digital technology.

Do you want to raise your employees' awareness of responsible digital in a concrete and engaging way?

Discover our responsible digital awareness serious escape game, or book a demo to talk directly with our team.