paper A scalar mismatch: the IETF’s sustainability approaches in a framework of infinite growth and abundance October 2026
Until recently, environmental harms were largely absent from internet governance discussions and their study. This article offers an analyses of how the environmental impact of internet infrastructure is discussed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) arguing that sustainability becomes a justification regime for the internet’s continued 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 through a thematic analysis of 26 position papers submitted to the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) e-impact workshop. These insights allow me to expand on Liboiron’s (2014, 2021) concept of scalar mismatch to illuminate how 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, a 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, showing how an environmental lens on infrastructure studies allows us to connect global governance debates with local conflict over resources. Read more.
