The world’s digital backbone is expanding at a pace unmatched in modern history. More than a trillion semiconductors now enter the global market each year, feeding 11,000+ data centres and the accelerating adoption of AI. Yet beneath this surge lies a structural vulnerability: the technology sector’s dependence on land, water, minerals, and stable ecosystems is colliding with the accelerating decline of the natural world.
This year’s Nature Positive: Role of the Technology Sector — released by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Oliver Wyman — marks a turning point. It positions the tech industry not only as a major driver of nature loss but as one of the few sectors capable of reversing it at scale.
A sector built on fragile ecological foundations
The report opens with stark metrics. Semiconductor manufacturing consumes more than 1 trillion litres of freshwater annually. Global data centres draw over 60 GW of electricity — roughly equivalent to California’s peak demand — while discarded hardware contributes 60 billion kilograms of e-waste each year, with less than 25% recycled.
The WEF warns that this ecological footprint is no longer a distant externality. The sector’s dependence on scarce resources is already constraining growth. Since May 2024, $64 billion worth of data-centre projects in the United States alone have been delayed or blocked, largely due to community concerns about water use, land pressure, and grid strain.
For government officials, the message is unmistakable: nature risk has become industrial risk, and the digital economy’s trajectory can no longer be insulated from environmental limits.
Mounting pressure from regulators, investors, and communities
A striking portion of the analysis centres on the tightening global policy environment. Under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Target 15 requires mandatory nature-related assessment and disclosure, and the regulatory ecosystem is accelerating accordingly.
New standards — including TNFD, ISSB’s integrated nature disclosures, and the EU’s ESRS E4 biodiversity rules — are pushing tech companies toward far deeper accountability across supply chains. More than 200 financial institutions with $23 trillion in assets have signed the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge, signalling investor expectations that nature performance is now integral to capital access.
Meanwhile, local communities are emerging as a decisive force. The WEF highlights a new reality: without proactive engagement and transparent management of natural-resource impacts, companies risk losing their social licence to operate.
Seven priority actions to reset tech’s relationship with nature
The report identifies seven high-leverage interventions for semiconductor manufacturers, data-centre operators, and hardware producers. They form the backbone of the nature-positive transition for the sector:
Resilient and restorative water systems. Efficient design, circular cooling, and watershed restoration to reduce strain on local supplies.
Resource-efficient energy and grid integration. Greater use of renewables, including location-specific strategies for solar, wind, and geothermal capacity.
Lower-impact chemicals and manufacturing processes. Substituting high-global-warming-potential process gases with alternatives already in pilot use.
Nature-positive site design. Incorporating land restoration, biodiversity buffers, and climate-risk planning into new facilities.
Circularity at scale. Designing for reuse, extending hardware lifetimes, and recovering valuable critical minerals from discarded electronics.
Supply-chain transformation. Incentivizing upstream suppliers to adopt nature-positive practices across mineral extraction, water use, and land impacts.
Transparent, nature-aligned governance. Integrating TNFD-aligned reporting, risk assessments, and cross-departmental nature strategies.
The WEF evaluates each action through a feasibility and leadership lens, noting that while many measures are already technically viable, broad adoption will require regulatory clarity, investment signals, and alignment across governments and industry.
Financial institutions emerge as transition accelerators
The report underscores an important inflection point: banks, insurers, and investors are shifting from a compliance mindset to a value-creation mindset.
Yet the gap is still enormous — less than 3% of the annual $1.2 trillion needed for nature-positive business is currently being met. Early adopters are beginning to link financing to measurable nature outcomes, supporting sustainable data-centre designs and circular digital infrastructure. This emerging momentum will influence technology investment decisions well into the next decade.
What global policymakers should take from this report
The conclusions of the WEF report land with unusual clarity. A nature-positive technology sector is not only possible — it is essential for global economic resilience. Without integrating nature into planning, procurement, site development, and supply chains, governments risk a future where digital expansion stalls under ecological constraints and public opposition.
But with decisive leadership, the sector can become a cornerstone of the global nature-positive transition.
As Microsoft’s Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa notes in the report, “If we work collectively, technology can help us not only grow and innovate but restore and protect the planet for generations to come.”
For ministers, regulators, and multilateral institutions, the opportunity — and responsibility — is now unmistakable: ensure the world’s most powerful engines of innovation become engines of restoration.
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