IB Digital Society 4.3 Environmental Key Definitions

The diversity of living organisms living in a biological environment.

The total greenhouse gas emissions caused by an activity, product, or organization, usually expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent. For a digital system it spans manufacturing, operation, and disposal.

An economic model that keeps materials in use as long as possible through repair, reuse, refurbishment, and recycling, in contrast to a linear make-use-dispose model.

A facility of networked servers that store, process, and distribute digital data. Data centres are the physical infrastructure behind the cloud and consume large amounts of electricity and, often, water for cooling.

A live digital model of a real physical system, such as a city or a factory, kept in step with reality by streams of sensor data. It lets people simulate and test changes in the model before making them in the physical world.

Waste and garbage of electronic devices.

A community of living organisms interacting with their physical environment.

AI that produces new text, images, audio, or code by learning patterns from vast training data. It is a powerful form of narrow AI, not a general intelligence, despite how capable it can seem.

Software that stores, maps, and analyses data tied to locations as separate layers, such as roads, water, and land use. Layers can be combined and queried, turning raw geographic data into maps that support navigation, planning, and analysis.

A satellite-based navigation system that provides location and time information anywhere on Earth.

Designing, making, using, and disposing of digital systems in ways that reduce their environmental impact, for example through energy-efficient hardware, longer device lifespans, and responsible recycling.

Materials and energy drawn from the natural world. Renewable resources (such as solar, wind, and water) replenish on human timescales; non-renewable resources (such as minerals and fossil fuels) are finite and are not replaced once used.

Designing a product with an artificially limited useful life so that it needs replacing sooner, for example through non-replaceable batteries, fragile parts, or software that stops being supported.

Reckless waste of substances that leads to negative environmental impacts.

Farming that uses location data, sensors, satellite and drone imagery, and AI to manage a field in small sections rather than as one uniform block. Inputs such as water, fertiliser, and pesticide are matched to the specific need of each part of the field.

A group of seventeen metallic elements used in small quantities in many digital devices, for example in magnets, screens, and batteries. They are hard to substitute and their mining and refining can be environmentally damaging.

Gathering information about the Earth's surface from a distance, usually using satellites or aircraft sensors. Combined with a geographic information system (GIS), it lets analysts map and monitor changes such as deforestation over time.

An urban area that uses networked sensors, data, and digital systems to run and optimise its services, such as traffic, energy, water, and waste. The aim is greater efficiency and quality of life, though it also raises questions about surveillance, data control, and who benefits.