World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern: Recent Episodes
Gerry McGovern
How do we design for less waste in digital? How can digital designers, developers and content professionals create a more environmentally friendly digital? One that uses less energy and creates less waste. One where reuse is at the core of thinking. One where the Earth Experience is central. Gerry McGovern will talk to designers who are pioneering green digital thinking and methods.
Aluminum mining: jobs and death in rural Ireland Aluminum is a critical material for digital. Since 1970, there has been 559% increase in its mining. A typical smartphone can be 14% aluminum, while a up to 50% of a laptop can be made up of steel and aluminum. Pat and Nuala Geoghegan are farmers from Askeaton, County Limerick. Soon after the Aughinish Alumina aluminum mining factory established itself nearby, their cattle began to get sick and die. And the Geoghegan family got sick. Their beautiful farm became “the killing fields”.
Thea Kleinmagd is a Circular Material Chains Innovator at Fairphone. When you are buying your next smartphone, please consider Fairphone. They make excellent, modular and repairable products that are built to last. I started our chat by asking Thea to describe the potential toxic impacts of some of the over 50 different materials found in a typical smartphone.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thea-kleinmagd/
World Wide Waste book: https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/
Gerry on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern
Dr. Josh Lepawsky is fascinated by connections between geography, technological systems, and their discards. He researches waste from the manufacturing of electronics to its end of life. He explores where e-waste accumulates and who it affects. He has a keen interest in “how maintenance and repair might offer lessons for figuring out how to live well together in permanently polluted and always breaking worlds. I started our chat by asking Josh about the “pernicious myth of digital-as-ethereal”
- https://electronicplanet.xyz/
- https://mun.ca/geography/people/faculty/josh-lepawsky/
- Gerry McGovern Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern
- World Wide Waste Book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/
- Read transcript / https://www.thisishcd.com
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Gauthier Roussilhe has specialized in the environmental footprint of the digital sector for 5 years, and is certainly among the most knowledable people I have been lucky to chat with about these issues. He is currently doing a PhD at the RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) to explore which digital infrastructures and services are compatible with a world stabilized at +2°C. I started our chat by asking Gauthier about the electricity impact of data centers.
Global figures are not reliable. We need to look at a country-level basis.
“I don’t know what it’s like in Ireland but in France between now and 2050, we have to reduce our final energy consumption by 40%. That’s the framing we have to have in mind when we are analyzing such sectors. You can have all the data centers in Ireland absorbing all the renewable energy capacity that is being put on the grid. So, data centers might have very nice environmental reports, lowering the carbon intensity of the electricity mix but now allowing other actors to get this renewable energy, so it becomes a zero-sum game.” Gauthier website / https://gauthierroussilhe.com Gerry McGovern Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern World Wide Waste Book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Read transcript / https://www.thisishcd.com
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Andy Farnell is a British computer scientist and author specialising in signals, systems and cybersecurity. His popular textbook "Designing Sound" (MIT) and pioneering research and development in audio DSP and synthesis defined the field of Procedural Audio. Consultant to leading technology companies, and visiting professor across Europe, Andy is a long-time advocate and prominent speaker on issues of digital rights, free open source software, good educational opportunities and access to enabling tools and knowledge for all. His latest books are "Digital Vegan" and "Ethics For Hackers" (Routledge). Digital Vegan https://digitalvegan.net/ Read Gerry McGovern 'World Wide Waste' Follow Gerry on Twitter
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Hannah is a freelance WordPress developer from Bristol with a background in Computer Science. Before freelance life, amongst other things, she honed her management skills at the Environment Agency, where she managed large business change projects. She’s co-founder of Green Tech South West and is on a mission to raise awareness about the environmental impact of digital tech - checkout #LetsGreenTheWeb on Twitter. She also likes dogs, plants and snow. World Wide Waste book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/ Gerry McGovern on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern
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'Earth Experience Design' course with Gerry McGovern Date: February 19 2022 Where: Online Tickets: https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/earth-experience-design-january-2022
About this episode
Is technology a good thing? That was my first question I asked Dr Sharon Richardson, who is a senior scientist and lecturer in geocomputation at the University of Zurich, where she applies data-intensive methods to improve understanding of and assist in human, societal and environmental challenges. Sharon also has a keen interest in exploring the potential and limits of AI in real-world decisions. World Wide Waste book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/ Gerry McGovern on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern
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Earth Experience Design - Online training Course with Gerry - Jan 19 2022 https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/earth-experience-design-january-2022
About this episode
Some people live their ideas. Katie Singer is one of them. She writes about the energy, extraction, toxic waste and greenhouse gases involved in manufacturing computers, telecom infrastructure, electric vehicles and other electronic technologies. Train with Gerry / https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/gerry-mcgovern Join the TiHCD Slack Community / https://www.thisishcd.com/community/slack-community Watch ''Top Tasks for Service Transformation' with Gerry McGovern & Ulla Devitt' / https://www.thisishcd.com/event-videos/top-tasks-for-service-transformation-with-gerry-mcgovern-ulla-devitt Gerry McGovern on Twitter / https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern
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If someone looked inside your computer or your Cloud account would they find a tidy, clean, well-maintained place? Or would they find a messy, chaotic dump. Imagine if old, waste content smelled. How smelly would your computer be? Anneli Ohvril is founder and CEO of Let’s Do It World, the international environmental organisation that engages leaders and organisations around the globe for a waste-free world. The biggest project World Cleanup Day have engaged in involved more than 50 million people from 180 countries. Anneli is an expert in social change and excels in communication and marketing. She is an initiator of numerous social changes locally and globally. Read Gerry's brilliant book 'World Wide Waste' https://gerrymcgovern.com/world-wide-waste/ Gerry McGovern on Twitter https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern Train with Gerry on This is Doing / Top Tasks https://www.thisisdoing.com/courses/top-tasks-identification-september-2021
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Hear about the many digital sustainability initiatives that are happening in France from Virginie Guerin, an urban planner, who is co-founder of World CleanUp Day France.
Learn about the recipe they used to get organizations and citizens involved in highly successful digital cleanup initiatives. Virginie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginie-guerin-consultante-transition-ecologique-ville-durable/?originalSubdomain=fr World Wide Waste - https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/
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Join Gerry McGovern at the Doing Design Festival on June 18 / See http://www.doingdesignfestival.com
The Website Carbon Calculator is a real go to tool for me when I want to find out how much CO2 a particular web page is creating. This, and many other great initiatives, comes from Wholegrain Digital, a company founded by Vineeta and Tom Greenwood in 2007. Tom has recently published an excellent book, Sustainable Web Design, from A Book Apart. I wanted to know how Vineeta and Tom got started so early in promoting a culture of sustainable web design. Website Carbon Calculator: https://www.websitecarbon.com/ Sustainable Web Design, Tom Greenwood :https://abookapart.com/products/sustainable-web-design Buy the book 'World Wide Waste by Gerry McGovern'
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When COVID-19 hit, many governments reverted to a panic publishing approach, getting as much content up on their websites as quickly as possible. Structure, organization, testing, it all got shoved aside in the rush to publish. Sarah explains how this sort of panic publishing culture can be avoided in the future because panicking serves nobody.
Sarah Richards defined the term ‘content design’ in the early days of GOV.UK, where she led the award-winning content team in the design of the UK government website. For me, GOV.UK is one of the shining lights when it comes to true and genuine quality web design and management. GOV.UK has shown what online government for the people, rather than for the politicians, can be like, by being functional, evidence-based, rigorously tested, clear and succinct. Sarah now runs Content Design London, a content design consultancy. Sarah is a wonderful person and a true digital pioneer. Buy the book by Gerry McGovern - https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Sarah / Content Design London - https://contentdesign.london/ Upcoming online live classes with Gerry McGovern - https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/gerry-mcgovern
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When Liam Nugent closed down his digital agency he accounted for all the digital stuff they had created. Each employee was generating about 100 gigabytes of data a year. When they cleaned up all this data so as to give a quality hand-off to their clients, they found that 99.9% of the 8 terabytes of data they had created was useless. Buy the book by Gerry McGovern - https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Liam Nugent Twitter / https://twitter.com/liamjnugent Upcoming online live classes with Gerry McGovern - https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/gerry-mcgovern
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Netlife is one of Norway’s digital pioneers, having focused on usability and user experience when it was not exactly fashionable. Beth Stensen, their CEO, talks to Gerry McGovern about how Netlife is on a new journey which focuses on the Earth Experience. It’s exciting and challenging times. Digital can often accelerate very bad and wasteful human behaviours. Designing digital for Earth Experience is a key challenge and opportunity. Buy the book by Gerry McGovern - https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Learn more about Netlife and Beth - https://www.netlife.com/folka/beth-stensen Upcoming online live classes with Gerry McGovern - https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/gerry-mcgovern
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By 2035, it is estimated that there will be more than 2,000 zettabytes of data produced globally. Based on current storage pricing, 2,000 zettabytes would cost $58 trillion to store. The global economy is currently worth about $80 trillion. The pace and quantity of data production is not even remotely sustainable.
One zettabyte—just one zettabyte—would require 20 trillion trees worth of paper to print out. There are about three trillion trees left on this planet. The digital world is undergoing a Big Bang of data and 90% of it is useless because we have a culture that prizes production and collection over-analysis and insight. Nick talks about how we might address the Big Data tsunami. Buy the book by Gerry McGovern - https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ Connect with Nick - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-e-0a0734124/ Upcoming courses with Gerry McGovern - https://www.thisisdoing.com/team/gerry-mcgovern
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The growth in webpage size over the years has been astounding. It is driven by a culture of delivery, a project mindset, and a feeling that the Web is this unlimited space where you can essentially do anything you want without consequences. But good web design is a complex task that many organizations are either unwilling or unable to manage professionally.
Once the initial buzz of signing off the visual design is done people want to move on. Fixing stuff is seen as a cost that the organization doesn’t have time or money for. Reframing things around quality can change the focus. Jono explores how we can think of web design through a quality lens. https://www.jonoalderson.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonoalderson/?originalSubdomain=uk Buy the book by Gerry McGovern - https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/
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Climate change is not seen by most as an immediate crisis, so we don’t act with urgency. The digital world is fairly blind to what needs to be done because in digital design we don’t think deep, broad and wide enough. Jared challenges us to think longer and broader and deeper, to think more connectedly on an earth experience level. We must rise to this impending global threat because if we don’t we condemn future generations to sink in a world we—us, our generation—have wasted. https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/ https://twitter.com/jmspool
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Chris Coyier talks to Gerry McGovern about how many of the tools and resources out there make it easy for developers and designers to create bloated, heavy, energy-sapping digital designs. Chris says we need new thinking and new tools that clearly indicate when we are making design decisions that are bad for the user and bad for the planet. https://twitter.com/chriscoyier https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/
This is HCD Podcast Network EthnoPod with Jay Hasbrouck Bringing Design Closer with Gerry Scullion ProdPod with Adrienne Tan Getting Started in Design with Gerry Scullion Moments of Change with Melanie Rayment World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern Global Jams Podcast with Adam Lawrence and Markus Edgar Hormess
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In this episode, Gerry McGovern speaks with Erika Hall from Mule Design. Gerry discusses with Erika if we've ruined web design, and if we have, what do we do about it? https://muledesign.com/speaking/erika-hall
Buy Gerry McGovern's new book 'World Wide Waste'
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This is HCD Podcast Network EthnoPod with Jay Hasbrouck Bringing Design Closer with Gerry Scullion ProdPod with Adrienne Tan Getting Started in Design with Gerry Scullion Power of Ten with Andy Polaine The Big Remote with Gerry Scullion and Andy Polaine Moments of Change with Melanie Rayment Talking Shop with Andy Polaine and Gerry Scullion Decoding Culture with Dr. John Curran World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern Global Jams Podcast with Adam Lawrence and Markus Hormess
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Welcome to World Wide Waste, a podcast about how digital is killing the planet and what to do about it. What is quality when it comes to web design, web development, web management? How do we know the customer is having a quality experience? How do we know as a web professional that we are doing a quality job? These are questions Karen Peeters, General Manager, Omni-Channel Management at Toyota Europe has been asking. I must apologise that the quality of the recording of Karen's voice is very poor. We had technical difficulties. However, the quality of the information that Karen delivers is extremely high. In fact, it is some of the most important insights that I have heard in 25 years of working in web management.
This is Doing See our current innovation courses
This is HCD Podcast Network EthnoPod with Jay Hasbrouck Bringing Design Closer with Gerry Scullion ProdPod with Adrienne Tan Getting Started in Design with Gerry Scullion Power of Ten with Andy Polaine NEW: The Big Remote with Gerry Scullion and Andy Polaine NEW: Moments of Change with Melanie Rayment Talking Shop with Andy Polaine and Gerry Scullion Decoding Culture with Dr. John Curran NEW: World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern NEW: Global Jams Podcast with Adam Lawrence and Markus Hormess
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Welcome to World Wide Waste, a podcast about how digital is killing the planet, and what to do about it. Eric Meyer is a passionate advocate of designing for humanity, of leaving no one behind when you create your design, of thinking deeply about how things work for everyone - not simply how beautiful they look.
Links in this episode
Eric Meyer / https://meyerweb.com/
World Wide Waste book / https://gerrymcgovern.com/books/world-wide-waste/
This is HCD Podcast Network EthnoPod with Jay Hasbrouck Bringing Design Closer with Gerry Scullion ProdPod with Adrienne Tan Getting Started in Design with Gerry Scullion Power of Ten with Andy Polaine NEW: The Big Remote with Gerry Scullion and Andy Polaine NEW: Moments of Change with Melanie Rayment Talking Shop with Andy Polaine and Gerry Scullion Decoding Culture with Dr. John Curran NEW: World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern NEW: Global Jams Podcast with Adam Lawrence and Markus Hormess
Connect with This is HCD Follow This is HCD us on Twitter Follow This is HCD on Instagram Sign up for our newsletter (we have lots of design giveaways!) Join the practitioner community on This is HCD Slack Channel Read articles on our This is HCD Network on Medium
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Welcome to World Wide Waste, a podcast about how digital is killing the planet, and what to do about it. In this session, I'm chatting with Jeremy Keith. Jeremy is a philosopher of the internet. Every time I see him speak, I'm struck by his calming presence, his brilliant mind and his deep humanity. Jeremy makes websites with Clearleft.
His books include DOM Scripting, Bulletproof Ajax, HTML5 for Web Designers, Resilient Web Design, and, most recently, Going Offline. Hailing from Erin's green shores, Jeremy maintains his link with Irish traditional music, running the community site The Session.
He also indulges a darker side of his bouzouki playing in the band, Salter Cane.
You can find out more about Jeremy at adactio.com. https://dannyvankooten.com/website-carbon-emissions/ http://designingforperformance.com/ https://idlewords.com/2020/03/we_need_a_massive_surveillance_program.htm Learn more about Gerry McGovern's World Wide Waste book
Join our live online Coffee Timeevents every Tuesday and Thursday during the pandemic with a surprise guest each time :-)
This is HCD Podcast Network EthnoPod with Jay Hasbrouck Bringing Design Closer with Gerry Scullion ProdPod with Adrienne Tan Getting Started in Design with Gerry Scullion Power of Ten with Andy Polaine NEW: The Big Remote with Gerry Scullion and Andy Polaine Talking Shop with Andy Polaine and Gerry Scullion Decoding Culture with Dr. John Curran NEW: World Wide Waste with Gerry McGovern NEW: Global Jams Podcast with Adam Lawrence and Markus Hormess
Connect with This is HCD Follow This is HCD us on Twitter Follow This is HCD on Instagram Sign up for our newsletter (we have lots of design giveaways!) Join the practitioner community on This is HCD Slack Channel Read articles on our This is HCD Network on Medium
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We are thrilled to welcome Gerry McGovern to the This is HCD Team, and delighted to present to you his new podcast, World Wide Waste.
How do we design for less waste in digital? How can digital designers, developers and content professionals create a more environmentally friendly digital? One that uses less energy and creates less waste. One where reuse is at the core of thinking. One where the Earth Experience is central. Gerry McGovern will talk to designers who are pioneering green digital thinking and methods.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.