This study undertook a qualitative investigation and quantitative assessment of the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on the environment in the period up to 2020. The four research institutes involved came to the conclusion that ICT can have both positive and negative consequences for the environment. The study included recommendations for policymakers.

A consortium of four institutes was formed under the leadership of the IZT.

Five closely interlinked work steps combined a wide range of methods. In the first step, the funding organisations and project partners agreed on a selection of sector/indicator combinations which, based on preliminary work, were assumed to have a particularly large impact on the environmental indicator. These are transport intensity (goods and passenger transport), energy intensity (of households, industry and services, possibly transport), municipal waste (from households, industry and services) and greenhouse gas emissions from the energy industry.
In the second step, the IZT created the information basis for the project. This included developments in ICT, which were identified on the basis of literature and scenario analyses. The most important ICT applications were selected from a synopsis. For these applications, internal and external factors/events were analysed with regard to their future influence on the indicators and the uncertainty was estimated.
Based on this preliminary work, the Forum for the Future drew up three scenarios in the third step. In the fourth step, EMPA-SIT modelled the effects of the scenarios on the environmental indicators. IIIEE categorised the results of the study and derived recommendations for policymakers.