Alicia Wise, CLOCKSS
Introduction
The CLOCKSS digital archive protects scholarship for future generations. We are a community-governed collaboration of global research libraries and academic publishers. We provide long-term digital preservation services for academic content published in any language or subject area.
CLOCKSS preserves content in 12 archive nodes located at leading research libraries around the world. We preserve a wide array of published material (e.g. journal articles and book titles plus associated data, images, software, videos, and web archives) and an increasing array of library digital collections (e.g. digitized special collections, e-theses and dissertations, institutional repository content).
Why we got involved in developing and testing the DPC’s Carbon Footprint Toolkit
Digital preservation depends on infrastructure running continuously for decades, so we wanted to understand what that actually means in environmental terms. Rather than looking only at CLOCKSS as an organisation, we took an ecosystem-level approach, building on work undertaken through the DIMPACT project and subsequently helping develop a shared approach through the Digital Preservation Coalition.
What we chose to focus on
We weren't simply trying to produce a number. We wanted the data to help us make better decisions about how and where we preserve content, and ultimately understand the carbon footprint associated with preserving each participant's content.
What we achieved
We collected detailed data from four of our 12 preservation nodes and used this as the basis for modelling the footprint of the wider archive. This gave us a practical first estimate and, importantly, confidence, skills, and a methodology we can reuse as our infrastructure changes.
Screenshot of the summary tab from the Carbon Footprint Calculation Tool. The spreadsheet provides a framework for calculating the carbon footprint of different areas of digital preservation activity and the summary tab brings it all together.
Lessons learned
Measuring our carbon footprint changed our understanding of where the biggest opportunities for reducing impact lie. For example, it surprised us to learn that integrity checking is our biggest source of emissions, and that one year of organizational travel generates as much carbon as one month of running the entire archive. It also showed us that carbon accounting can't be a one-off exercise: equipment, hosting locations, and services change over time, so the calculations need to evolve too.
Next steps
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Making carbon footprint calculation part of ongoing operational responsibility rather than a one-off project.
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Factoring environmental impact into future infrastructure and preservation-node decisions.
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Asking equipment manufacturers for embodied-carbon information before purchasing new hardware.
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Enabling participants to include the carbon impact of digital preservation in their own carbon-footprint reporting.