[Changemaker Series] Interview With Katrin Fritsch: Digital Decolonization, Big Tech Monopolies, and Systemic Sustainability

In the last part of our Changemaker Blog series, we sat down with Katrin Fritsch, Senior Program Manager at The Green Web Foundation.

Katrin is a researcher, writer, and consultant on technology, climate, and feminist perspectives. Katrin shared invaluable insights from her work, including her involvement with the Green Web Foundation’s open source tools and the CODES project, emphasising the need to materialise the internet and push for systemic change.

In this interview, we explored that the challenge of digital sustainability extends beyond carbon footprints to include social justice and equity. To escape generic promises of technology, we must collectively use participatory methods to design tangible, preferred futures for the internet.

What do you think are the most important concepts or aspects that young people should understand about how the Internet works and its ecological costs?

Katrin: 

The key concept is materialising the Internet - understanding that the Internet is not just “the cloud” or an intangible entity. It has a tangible impact on society and on the environment. There is a growing awareness, especially in Europe, about things like the energy usage of AI or the rising demand for rare earth minerals.

This realisation creates a feeling that what we do online and the sleek devices we hold have a significant environmental and societal impact.

This often leads to the question, “What should I do differently?”.

I think we need to shift the focus from solely individual actions, like using less generative AI to structural and infrastructure-level questions. The Internet is a core infrastructure, and its environmental footprint cannot be solved by individual action alone; it requires systemic, policy-driven change. We need to learn from the climate discourse and understand that while we can make personal adjustments, our efforts must also be directed towards demanding structural accountability from the biggest players.

We deeply agree with the insights shared by Katrin. Dealing with the environmental impact of internet infrastructures requires collaborative effort and a change in individual mindset.

What are some of the system-level challenges in making the Internet and emerging technologies like AI more sustainable?

Katrin: 

I have identified about four key system-level challenges:

Monopolistic Infrastructure: We are heavily reliant on a few very large Big Tech companies, mostly from the US or China. This monopoly creates immense difficulty in setting demands around where they locate their data centres, what energy they use, and what environmental data they are willing to disclose

Lack of Verified Data and Independent Research: We still do not have enough verified, trustworthy, and independent research on the environmental impacts of the Internet. This lack of open data is a major challenge when trying to build open-source tools to address these impacts. Too much of the available data is produced by the very companies whose impacts we are trying to measure. This is a daily challenge at The Green Web Foundation as we work to build open-source tools based on reliable data. We need to fund and support truly independent research that is not dependent on Big Tech funding.

For the understanding of our readers, we would also like to highlight here that researchers have highlighted that ICT energy figures can diverge by factors due to different scopes, methods, and availability of data. Thus, the need for verifiable and independent research data is evident. 

Separation of Conversations: The conversation around sustainability is often separate from the conversation around digitalisation or tech justice. There is a lack of intersection, especially at the governance level, and a lot that needs to be learned and unlearned by both communities.

Dominance of the Sustainability Through Digital Narrative: The prevailing narrative, often pushed by private corporations, focuses on how digital technologies (like AI) can advance sustainability, rather than critically examining the environmental impact of digital technologies. We need to be cautious about this narrative, especially since we often lack the data to prove that using AI for sustainability truly results in a net positive.

This is a form of technological solutionism that distracts from the more critical question: What is the environmental impact of digital technology itself?

This narrative that tech is inherently beneficial must be challenged, especially since we often lack the necessary data to confirm that using AI for a green purpose results in a net positive impact. We must be extremely cautious about this framing.

What, in your opinion, would be the best way for young individuals to engage in or contribute towards sustainable Internet infrastructures, and what kind of support do they need?

Katrin: 

The key is to come together in a collective. Engaging in workshops within a community is beneficial. People are often highly individualised, and they need time to reflect and talk about these issues with others. Beyond that, I found it very useful to work with different building blocks or frameworks for imagining futures. Imagining positive futures is actually not easy, as we are not well-trained in doing so. Providing people with story lines, items, or frameworks helps them to think more out of the box and move past the generic, 1990s era promises of the Internet that centres around everyone being equal and everyone being connected. 

We would like to highlight that the Futures Methodology is considered a well-researched method to think about sustainable infrastructures in the long run. The futures method is a participatory foresight technique that uses structured workshops and frameworks (like scenarios or prompts) to help groups collectively overcome present bias and creatively design alternative, desirable futures.

What are some of the lesser-known aspects of the Internet’s environmental footprint that you think deserve more attention?

Katrin: 

Beyond the typical focus on carbon emissions and water consumption, there are lesser-known but equally critical aspects:

Supply Chain Issues and Extractive Politics: This involves looking at the raw material extraction needed for tech infrastructure. For example, the impact of the European Union’s green transition narratives on extractive politics outside of the EU, or connectivity policies in the Amazon and the Majority World, can perpetuate colonial power structures.

Local Impacts of Data Centres: Data centres are tangible, and communities living near them face issues beyond water usage, such as sound pollution and air pollution from backup diesel generators. This is a very strong, localised case for focusing on the environmental impact of the Internet, leading to what some call data centre activism.

How do you envision AI playing a role in moving the needle towards sustainable Internet futures, and what are some of the challenges around AI and sustainability in the context of rapid digitalisation?

Katrin: 

I would strongly reference the “Within Bounds: Limiting AI’s Environmental Impact” joint statement from the Green Web Foundation and other civil society organisations.

The core message is that if we want to use AI at all, we must phase out fossil fuels from its infrastructure. AI must run completely on renewable energy. Because AI tends to exaggerate energy consumption, it should not be developed on fossil fuels and must not be used for industries like gas and oil exploration.

Challenges include:

• The fact that AI’s rising demand for energy is pushing some companies to open new fossil fuel power plants, and 

• The crucial need for equal participation - people across the entire supply chain must be included in decisions about how AI is developed and for what purpose. This makes the supply chain more visible and understandable, enabling more research and transparency.

Do you have any case studies or specific projects that stand out as successful examples of initiatives creating sustainable Internet infrastructure?

Katrin: 

I highly recommend looking at The Green Web Foundation’s open-source tools. They are great examples because they allow for direct contribution and encourage people to actively work on changing things, not just criticising what exists. One recent example is the Branch magazine, which is now grid-aware, meaning the website changes its display based on the current location’s energy grid-carbon intensity.

I also believe future-making as a participatory practice is crucial. Projects that engage in this, like the feminist futures projects I have worked on, provide a framework for imagining and building a different future.

We are really grateful to Katrin for sharing these insights with us. As we understand, to build a just and sustainable digital future, we must abandon the passive expectation from technology itself. The key is to bring diverse collectives together in structured workshops with imaginative frameworks to gain the tools to design and realise a preferred, equitable internet. The future of digital infrastructure is not a technical problem alone; it is a challenge in collective imagination that requires us all to become intentional architects of change. We believe that, to frame and urge policy-driven change, articulation about our preferred futures and being involved in their creation is of utmost importance.