Efforts to enhance the energy efficiency of the world's IT infrastructure are struggling to keep pace with the boom in new digital technologies and functionalities.

That is the stark conclusion of a new report from French think tank The Shift Project, which warns energy consumption across the ICT industry is currently growing at an "unsustainable" rate of nine per cent a year.

Entitled Lean ICT - Towards Digital Sobriety, the wide-ranging report calculates digital technologies and infrastructure accounted for 3.7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions last year, up from 2.5 per cent in 2013.

"The explosion of video uses (Skype, streaming, etc.) and the increased consumption of short-lifespan digital equipment are the main drivers of this inflation," the report said.

There is also no end in sight to this trend, with digital technologies expected to account for four per cent of global emissions by 2020.

The report warns the sector is failing to match the improvements in energy efficiency seen in other parts of the economy and is struggling to deliver on the promise that a shift to more dematerialised digital services will lead to emissions and energy use savings.

"Digital industry energy intensity is increasing by four per cent per year, [which] is in stark contrast to the trend of global GDP's energy intensity evolution, which is currently declining by 1.8 per cent per year," the report states. "The direct energy consumption caused by $1 invested in digital technologies has increased by 37 per cent compared to 2010."

It adds that the emissions trends across the sector go "against the objective set in the Paris Agreement to decouple both energy consumption and climate change from GDP growth". "Therefore, the real trend of digital is in opposition to its presupposed function of dematerializing the economy," it warns.

However, the report argues steps can be taken to drastically curb future energy use and emissions across the ICT industry if energy efficiency best practices are embraced and steps are taken to extend the life of digital products.

It calculates that under a "digital sobriety" scenario the growth in energy consumption can be curbed from nine per cent to just 1.5 per cent, even as data centre capacity and mobile networks continue to grow.

The report argues that such a shift from away from digital 'intemperance' could be achieved "without challenging the core principles of the digital transition".

"In this scenario, the volume of data flowing through data centres and mobile networks would still increase respectively by 17 per cent and 24 per cent per year, and both smartphones and televisions yearly productions would stabilize around 2017 levels - whereas their markets in developed countries are close to reaching saturation," it states. 

However, it warns that even under this scenario additional emissions savings would be required to bring the industry into line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The study follows a separate report last week from analyst firm 415 Research and data centre technology specialist Vertiv, which revealed more than 90 per cent of telecoms operators fear the rollout of 5G and Edge Computing technologies will lead to increased energy costs.

The survey of over 100 global network operators found 88 per cent plan to deploy 5G in 2021-2022, but more than 90 per cent expect the move to 5G will result in higher energy costs.

A separate analysis by Vertiv has warned the move to 5G is likely to increase total network energy consumption by 150-170 per cent by 2026.

A host of leading IT firms have invested heavily in new energy efficiency measures, improved data centre management, and renewable energy capacity, as they seek to curb emissions, reduce energy costs, and decouple digital expansion and their carbon footprint.

However, environmental campaigners are increasingly concerned that across the sector this progress is struggling to keep pace with the rapid roll out of energy-hungry digital technologies, which is continuing to gather pace in many developing and industrialised economies.