Facebook recently announced its plans for creating the Metaverse. This has raised many concerns among people in regards to their access to user data, the spread of misinformation on their platforms, distorting individuals' perception of reality through “algorithmic experience bubbles”, etc. But I rarely hear people discussing the metaverse from an environmental sustainability perspective. This is rather interesting, considering the widespread discussion on climate change and global warming taking place simultaneously. I’ll bring these two together in this article.
Is Metaverse environmentally sustainable?
My concern with the Metaverse is, that it will allow people to use an increasing amount of energy in creating their verses — the items and spaces in them. Algorithms do take energy, and currently our technological infrastructure is by no means fully powered by clean energy. In the case of Metaverse it will clearly result in exponential growth in use of AR and VR technology, which in turn could result in an effect of increased energy expenditure. Facebook in its official statement is saying, that Metaverse “will be sustainable”, as it is promoting dematerialization of assets and reducing the need of manufacturing physical materials.
Why dematerialization is not the straightforward answer
Dematerialization basically means transforming physical materials into a digitalized format. In the case of Metaverse this could mean your personal assets digitalized and therefore you would not need so many physical items anymore. However, in the concept videos that I see, Facebook is aiming for creating a “virtual layer” on top of the physical one. Basically, this means that there will still be a need for many everyday physical items, and on top of that the Metaverse-enabling hardware that everyone will need to have.
Rebound effect
Furthermore, sustainability research has proved concerning things so far; there is a “rebound effect” that results often in increased energy usage due to the increased popularity and usage of technology. If we try to build something that is more energy-efficient, it often results in increased usage and through this increased energy expenditure, instead of reduced expenditure.
An example that highlights these issues are prior cases of dematerialization (for example music industry, digitalized music, Spotify, Apple music, etc.). It has been argued, that no sign of reduced environmental impact has taken place, and instead, the energy expenditures have kept growing with the dematerialization of music. How is the Metaverse trajectory any different from this? Therefore, we need to seriously think about the sustainability concerns ahead of time, before the Metaverse is fully realized. Facebook stated that they are planning to work together with stakeholders to make sure the Metaverse is safe. But do they also consider the enviromental sustainability perspective? And are they working with stakeholders to ensure, that it will be designed sustainable?
So what should we do?
I am not against developing new technologies and innovation — I am working with HCI and AI Art after all. But I advocate for developing these in a responsible and sustainable way, and therefore I think this should be taken into consideration by designers, organizations, and individuals engaging in the building of the Metaverse. I think that with the coming of Metaverse, the sustainability factors should be prioritized from the get go. By this I mean, that there should be a certain consideration on how much people are using energy, and how that energy is acquired. Perhaps this could mean energy usage limits for the people of the Metaverse (enegy-based digital economy?), or building the digital infrastructure fully on renewable energy. Perhaps the designed hardware can be solar-powered, or people can have solar panels in their home to power their portion of the usage. These questions remain to be explored.
To conclude, there are not so many answers yet in how to have a “sustainable Metaverse”. But on the bright side — there is an interesting challenge that needs to be solved.
