A corporation can reduce its paper usage, digitize every process it touches, and call itself sustainable. But that claim needs to be tested against a complete picture of its relocated environmental footprint.

A general impression is given to make us believe that the digital transition is insignificant in terms of its carbon footprint, no paper trail, no file warehouses to store mountains of paper, or no visible smoke either. But the environmental cost is not eliminated; it is simply shifted somewhere else away from the direct gaze. This invisibilization is hard to notice because it happens far away from the point of digitalization itself. How power-consuming data centres, cloud servers, gadget manufacturing, and cooling plants fare in terms of carbon footprint has received scant attention. Digitalization is presented as a panacea for enhancing human convenience and combating climate crisis, requiring no scrutiny of its carbon footprint. It is assumed that digitalization carries no implications for carbon emissions significant enough to warrant meaningful discussion or inquiry.