All data for 2023.
Total GHG Emissions for India (CO2eq): 3.4 billion tons.
Total IT & Digital Sector Industry Emissions:
- Total emissions: 35-50 million tons (CO2eq)
- Proportion of total GHG emissions: 1-1.5%
The estimates for India’s software & IT sector are a bit uncertain.
One, there are really no reliable estimates for IT sector alone, only available for IT & telecom together. Even for these together, there seem to be no authentic data sets.
Some estimates have suggested about 4% of total GHG emissions as the ICT sector’s emissions. On what basis the sources are providing a footprint of 4% is not clear. 4% sounds really on the higher side, and this is why. Given that Telecom sector emissions are about 1%, that alone reduces IT & software sector emissions to about 3% of total.
But even 3% of total, or a bit more than 100 million tons, appears very high for IT & software sector.
Infosys, at a total 2023 revenue of about $18 billion has about 0.25 million tons of CO2 emissions (All three scopes!), Wipro at $12 billion has about 0.4 million tons per annum. India’s total IT industry revenues are about $250 billion in 2023. Extrapolating these numbers, the total software industry must be emitting only about 7-10 million tons of CO2 every year. Even assuming that the smaller companies are much less energy efficient, I doubt the total CO2 emissions can go beyond 20-25 million tons per annum, which is only about 0.7% of total GHG emissions or about 1% of total CO2 emissions.
Let’s consider global benchmarks. Even globally, ICT sector emits about 3% of total CO2 emissions, which is only about 2% of GHG emissions, and IT & Software sector alone, perhaps 1.5% of GHG emissions (see supporting data section below).
With all the above inputs, I would imagine India’s software & IT sector’s GHG emissions to be no more than global benchmarks for IT sector, which is about 1.5% or about 50 million tons. It is likely to be closer to 1%, or 35 million tons.
Narsi (Aug 28, 2024).
Hope this is useful.
If you have queries on this, please send a note to narsi@eai.in and I will try my best to help! – Narsi, EAI
Support data and other highlights
4% – India’s ICT sector responsible for 4% emissions –
Global CO2 emissions from ICT sector ranges from 2.1-3.9% – that’s a pretty large range! – https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-53227-6_31. And even more confusing, the global telecom sector is responsible for about 600 million tons of CO2. At the ICT sector emitting even 4% of total CO2 emissions of about 36 billion tons, that would be about 1.4 billion tons in total, and for the IT would then be about 800 million tons of CO2 (2.2% of total CO2 emissions and 1.5% of total GHG emissions). This kind of sounds right when you consider that data centers are estimated to emit about 300 million tons, according to IEA.
