Key Idea: Digital systems reveal environmental harm and cause it, and an honest answer holds both. The cost is certain; the benefit depends on somebody acting on what was seen.
Paper 1
- Part a: outline an environmental cost, or identify waste stages
- Part b: explain why monitoring may not reduce harm
- Part c: evaluate monitoring, repair rules or precision farming
Paper 2
- Q1 and Q2: read an environmental chart and evaluate it
- Q3: compare sources on responsibility for waste
- Q4: synthesise sources on technology and the environment
Everywhere else
- HL 5.3: this topic is the SL half of sustainability
- Economic: the chain puts cost and value in different countries
- Systems: rebound is a feedback loop with a name
Where the numbers actually are
| Stage | Share of a device's footprint | What reaches it |
|---|---|---|
| Mining | Substantial, and paid before ownership | Sourcing rules, rarely enforced abroad |
| Manufacturing | The largest single share | Anything that lengthens the used stage |
| Use | Smaller than people assume | Efficiency, subject to rebound |
| Disposal | Health cost, borne elsewhere | Producer responsibility |
Rank an intervention by how close it gets to manufacturing. Longer use first, a second owner next, recovering materials last — and recycling is the popular one, not the large one.
Three limits on monitoring
All three are structural
- Seeing is not stopping. Evidence only works where somebody has the power and the will to act on it.
- The observer and the authority are often in different countries, so the evidence exists and nothing follows.
- The monitoring has its own footprint, paid whether or not anything changes.
Important: Cheaper per use produces more uses. A saving per unit is not a saving overall, so an efficiency measure has to be judged on the total rather than on the rate.
Exam-style questions
Suggest two reasons why a company might support environmental monitoring of its own supply chain.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Justify the claim that responsibility for electronic waste should lie with producers rather than with consumers.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Quick check
The two halves Digital systems reveal environmental harm at enormous scale and consume electricity, water and metals to do it.
Which stage dominates a device's footprint? Manufacturing. That is why device lifetime beats recycling.
What is rebound? Cheaper per use produces more uses, so a saving per use is not a saving overall.
The test for monitoring Did anybody decide differently because of what it showed?
Exam tips
- Hold both halves. Picking one side is the standard weak answer in this topic.
- Rank interventions by how close they get to manufacturing, and place recycling explicitly third.
- 'The cost is certain and the benefit is conditional' is a strong line for any environmental technology question.