A scalar mismatch: the IETF’s sustainability approaches in a framework of infinite growth and abundance

Until recently, environmental harms were largely absent from internet governance discussions and their study. This article offers an analysis of how the environmental impact of internet infrastructure is discussed in the IETF to argue that sustainability becomes a justification regime for the internet's existence and growth in a world in crisis. Taking a discard studies approach, I explore what is and what must be discarded for the internet to continue to operate. These insights allow me to expand on Liboiron concept of ‘scalar mismatch’ to illuminate that limits to growth are directly at odds with the values that have shaped the internet. The internet governance community has not come to grips with the idea that the network is an environmental problem in itself; rather, the belief in growth, abundance of natural resources, and sustainability through innovation shapes their understanding of sustainability. This paper straddles infrastructure studies, internet governance studies, and environmental social sciences, and shows how an environmental lens to infrastructure studies allows us to connect the global governance debates with local conflict over resources.