Top Cyber Industry Defenses Spike CO2 Emissions

Two specific areas of cybersecurity — backups and identity and access management (IAM) — are responsible for nearly half (45%) of the cybersecurity industry's climate impact.

Though rarely discussed, like any other technologies, cybersecurity protections carry their own costs to the planet. Programs run on electricity. Servers demand water. Devices are built from natural resources and eventually get thrown out.

Gérôme Billois, cybersecurity and digital trust partner at Wavestone, recalls seeing all kinds of sustainability movements in corporate settings and wondering why cybersecurity was never part of the conversation. 

"CISOs can help or make the situation worse [when it comes to] sustainability, depending on the way they write security rules," he says. "And that's why we started a study: to enable the CISO to be part of the sustainability process of his or her company, and to find actionable ways to reduce CO2 ...