Miami’s hidden environmental impacts: A Google-based campus and other tech systems

Miami University has set lofty goals to reach carbon neutrality by 2040, including funding renewable energy projects and constructing more environmentally-friendly buildings. These do well to reduce carbon use on campus, but lurking beyond the brick buildings and tree-lined paths are emissions that students are forced into from the second they step on campus, and which neither they nor Miami have full control over.

Miami is a Google-based campus, as all students and faculty are given an “@miamioh.edu” email, which is actually just a Gmail account. Beyond Google, Miami uses the Amazon-owned Canvas platform for classes and has started offering AI features to anyone with Miami credentials. What these companies, along with AI technology, have in common is their use of enormous data centers, which are extremely energy and water intensive.

Dustin Edwards, a 2016 Miami graduate who now teaches at San Diego State University, specializes in researching and writing about the environmental damages of today’s digital infrastructure and hopes more people, including universities, become aware of the issue.

Edwards said that environmental impacts from these programs aren't on many universities’ minds.

“I think while it has slipped under the radar in the past, I hope that universities can take a deeper look and maybe disclose their relationship [with technology] and the kind of environmental impacts it has,” Edwards said.

Despite the intense emissions from these centers, students and faculty alike are brought into this system and are unable to leave during their time at Miami. While the university releases data about most environmental impacts, the emissions that arise from Miami’s cloud-based third-party services are not tracked.

Miami’s director of sustainability, Olivia Herron, said that’s because it’s impossible and unnecessary.

“As far as I know, Google doesn’t really disclose [the emissions] Miami takes up,” Herron said. “... That sort of information isn’t publicly disclosed for all sorts of reasons. Google probably doesn’t want to tell anyone.”

Moreover, tracking these emissions falls outside of the third-party framework that Miami follows for its sustainability plans, so Herron explained that even if they could track these emissions, they don’t have to.

Therefore, students and faculty are either unaware or unable to change these “cloud-based” emissions inherent to the Miami experience. Despite multiple data centers from Google and Amazon based in central Ohio, understanding Miami’s role in their emissions is a world away, although Herron said she imagines Miami takes “way less than 1%” of their energy use.

“We’re a Canvas and Google campus, you can’t really avoid not doing your homework because we’ve chosen that as our main provider,” said Will Sayner, a junior botany major and environmental science co-major. “But I definitely feel the first step would be educating people about it.”

However, Miami does not delegate all of its internet traffic to off-campus data centers. There is on-campus IT infrastructure, that houses user files and some traffic from Miami’s website. These data servers are housed in Hoyt Hall on Western Campus.

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Herron said these require cooling 365 days a year, no matter the temperature outside. The specific energy usage from the data centers is not tracked. However, Hoyt Hall is powered by renewable geothermal energy and is included in Miami’s total building emission tracking.

Even though Miami students find themselves unable to change their ways when it comes to digital emissions on campus, Edwards does not think that should be the goal. He said that bringing up the subject to bigger audiences and getting people engaged is the key, which can lead to legislation and energy efficiency, curbing data center impacts.

“There’s a lot of ways that you can’t opt out of it, but I do think having more honest conversations about the environmental material impact of digital infrastructure is going to be increasingly important,” Edwards said.

nortonsm@miamioh.edu