Net-Zero Digital Research Infrastructure Scoping

Every time a UK researcher stores a dataset, runs a model, or streams a video from a national archive, that digital activity burns energy and emits carbon—and no one has systematically measured the total cost. This two-year scoping project, led by NERC across UKRI, will produce the first comprehensive survey of the carbon footprint of the UK’s publicly funded digital research infrastructure, from data generation through to long-term storage and dissemination. The problem is straightforward: UKRI has committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2040, but it currently lacks the basic data needed to know where the biggest carbon savings can be made. Without that knowledge, efforts to cut emissions risk being inefficient or even counterproductive. The project will fill this gap by mapping the digital carbon landscape, then developing a Net-Zero Data Roadmap and a set of practical demonstrators—small-scale test cases—that show how data conservation, analysis, and management can be redesigned to reduce emissions. If successful, the roadmap will guide how UKRI builds, operates, and upgrades its data infrastructure for the long term. The direct impact will be invisible to most people: the servers, networks, and archives that quietly underpin UK environmental science—and much of the wider research enterprise—will become measurably cleaner. The work also feeds directly into the UKRI Environmental Sustainability Strategy, ensuring that carbon-reduction targets are balanced against the need to grow research capability.