The SYMPACT project by Mike Yearworth of the Systems Centre, considers a number of questions on the environmental impact of the digital transformation: 

• What is the environmental impact of both print and online media?
• How will changes in technology alter this impact over time?
• How is digital technology changing customer behaviour now, and how might this happen in the future?
• What new business models do technological advances open up, and how will they affect the environmental impact?
• How will environmental factors, such as carbon pricing, act as business and behavioural drivers within this system?
• Beyond energy and climate, what other sustainability implications might this transformation have?

To tackle these questions the project will develop a new modelling framework which combine systems modelling, environmental life cycle analysis, scenario development and qualitative representation of uncertainty.

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