Foreword written for the forthcoming 2024 report: Environmental Impact of EdTech: The Hidden Costs of Digital Learning, published by the International Centre For EdTech Impact & Digital Promise.

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The ever-growing presence of digital technologies in education is intimately connected to many ‘big picture’ issues. Everyone involved in EdTech now has to reflect on their work in ways that might seem extraneous at first glance yet are utterly integral to the long-term significance and impact of what we do. There are a lot of connections that need to be made. For example, how is EdTech implicated in the continued corporate takeover of public education? How does EdTech articulate with the worldwide resurgence of populism, nationalism and far-right politics? How do we explain the apparent failure of EdTech to impact on sustained patterns of poverty, social inequality and injustice that blight all societies? 

Yet perhaps the most difficult – but arguably most critical – connection is rethinking EdTech in light of ongoing environmental breakdown and climate collapse. As this report admirably demonstrates, everyone involved in EdTech needs urgently to engage with the environmental implications of their work. In short, how can we progress toward future forms of digital technology use in education that are fit for purpose in an eco-compromised and resource-constrained world? 

Thinking about EdTech along environmental lines opens up a host of different directions, debates, reactions and responses. On one hand, many people in the EdTech sector might well be drawn to the possible reinvention of ‘green’ forms of educational technology use. Indeed, it is well worth considering how digital technologies might play a part in supporting less environmentally impactful forms of education provision, or perhaps offering ways of coping with climate-related disruptions to conventional forms of schooling. For example, how might digital technologies be part of ‘emergency’ efforts to ensure educational continuity in a world of increasingly frequent climate-related disruptions? Similarly, how might digital technologies be used to support education provision for growing numbers of people forced into climate-forced migration? 

On the other hand, it is also important to contemplate the need for less EdTech in light of  the clear environmental harms associated with the use of digital technologies. For instance, the energy and resource demands of AI and other data-driven computing seem to be fast becoming unsustainable – not least because of a data centre industry that depends on excessive amounts of electricity and water consumption. At the same time, the manufacturing of computing hardware carries on depleting planetary supplies of rare metals and minerals, while the disposal of digital devices continues to result in toxic e-waste being dumped onto some of the poorest parts of the world. When seen in these terms, it is increasingly difficult to justify the ways that many education systems in Europe, North America and parts of East Asia have come to depend on a state of ‘always-on’ and ‘in-the-cloud’ digital excess that hardly seems sustainable, let alone ethically sound.

So, it is high time to start talking about EdTech at a planetary-scale and engage in some serious discussions around what the continued use of digital technology might look like in the forthcoming decades. Is it possible to develop genuinely ‘green’ forms of EdTech … or do we need to radically scale-back and slow-down levels of digital technology consumption in education? Of course, these environmental challenges are not unique to education – and there are certainly other areas of society that also need to quickly face up to these issues. Nevertheless, schools, colleges and universities are ideally-placed to begin addressing the environmental implications of digital technology – leading by example and inspiring their students, teachers, local families and communities to reassess the environmental impact of their own digital technology consumption.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that education needs to radically rethink its relationship with digital technology. That said, there are no easy answers or clear solutions to any of the problems, concerns and tensions raised in this report. The future is essentially unknowable – these are not trends that can be neatly predicted, forecast and addressed. Instead, deciding on what future forms of environmentally appropriate EdTech might look like needs to be the focus of serious discussion and debate. It is important is that these conversations begin to take place as soon as possible. This report is a great place to start!