Your cloud is drying my river
A neighbour who buys up land in the area and places buildings that extract enormous amounts of water from the area. So much water, that the water no longer comes out of your tap. It happens in various places around the world. Data centres are often built in places where water is already scarce. In 2023, Microsoft said that 42% of their water came from areas where there is a shortage of water. Data centres are often built in these areas because they work best in places with low humidity. In addition, they need large amounts of water to cool down their systems, but won't use seawater in order to prevent corrosion as much as possible.
“Neither people nor data can live without water. But human life is essential, and data isn’t.”
- Aurora Gómez, lid van de actiegroep Tu Nube Seca Mi Río
Under the guise of technological progress, big tech companies are building more and more data centres. They promise employment, innovation, solutions to social problems and tackling the climate crisis. But in practice, they cause many problems for the environment. These buildings filled with computers require enormous amounts of water to cool the technology. And water is just one of the many resources that technology consumes on a large scale. This further increases the pressure on the liveability of our planet.
Hello, world
World: comes from the Latin word vir (men) and Gotic word alds (age). Literally 'world' means 'human age' and 'the people that live in such a period, humanity'.
Anyone who has ever programmed knows “Hello world”. It is the first sentence you learn in all programming languages. It is not just a sentence, it is a tradition. But who are we greeting with this phrase? And doesn't the current climate crisis and the extinction of animal species require a different approach? Until now, we have only used our “Hello world” opening to greet each other as humans, while the technology we create should serve our entire ecosystem.
More and more is becoming known about the major impact that computer technologies have on our planet, including destruction caused by the mining of rare raw materials and the enormous amount of water and energy consumption. The choice to design and deploy technology in this way contributes to the worsening of the climate crisis and the extinction of animals, plants and fungi. To restore the Earth and the climate, we must stop taking humans as our starting point and learn to take into account the ecology we are part of.
A new starting point
Central to Waag's work is questioning technology and underlying cultural assumptions. Waag therefore questions not only technology, but also the systems surrounding technology: Why does it have to be faster? Why does it have to be more? And if we change the underlying system, what could technology look like?
“Technologists are great at incremental fixes, but to regenerate entire habitats, we need to learn from ecologists who take a whole-system view.”
- Maria Farrell en Robin Berjon
Currently, sustainable reforms are often limited to changing parts of the current capitalist system, not the system itself. Thinking in terms of systems and relationships is at the heart of regenerative design. 'Regeneration' is about an essential part of life: the power to recover, renew, form relationships and learn.
“Regenerativity forces us to question the very intentions behind tools and practices we have grown accustomed to. It forces us to understand their impact on a larger scale than immediately visible or felt by us”
– Ola Bonati, Waag Futurelab
At the same time, computer technologies will always be extractive due to the raw materials, energy and water they require. Regenerative technology is therefore primarily about creating reciprocal relationships between humans, more-than-humans and the environment. It is technology designed from a systemic perspective that takes the Earth and all its inhabitants as its starting point.
“In our current system, humans have already extracted so much from our planet. Regeneration is also about restoring the balance. Not only use earths resources, but also giving back. Since there is no 100% green technology, it is interesting to understand how regeneration can shift our perspective on technology development.”
- Judith Veenkamp, Waag Futurelab
How do we get there?
There are already movements in the design world that focus on a reciprocal relationship between people and their environment. Permaculture, which originated as a counter-movement to industrial agriculture, is a design method based on working with nature rather than against it. Inspired by these ideas of permaculture, the permacomputing movement is committed to resilience and regeneration in computer technology. It is based on a number of principles for using and designing technology, such as the principles of 'Not Doing' and 'Expose the seams'.
Not Doing: Choose not to use technology and encourage degrowth. When asked why and how we use technology on a warming planet, the answer is often efficiency, without questioning extractive business models. We are currently in a Jevons Paradox: higher efficiency leads to more use, therefore the efficiency does not lead to less pressure on resources. The most effective way to reduce the damage caused by computing is to observe what is really needed and (sometimes) simply choose not to use technology.
Expose the seams: Make mechanisms in technology visible and thereby be transparent about meanings, motivations and materiality. Frictionless and slick software obscures underlying processes. Hiding the underlying processes prevents users from understanding how the technology works, asking critical questions, interacting, and sharing skills. Consider, for example, AI, where it is unclear how a prompt leads to the end result.
The principles help us reflect on current harmful technological habits and ideas, recognise the scarcity of natural resources, and to ensure that both human and more-than-human needs are met. Permacomputing makes the impact of our technology on the planet tangible, offers alternative ways of working, and creates a collective imagination of regenerative technology.
What does Waag?
Waag Futurelab is convinced that, given the current attitude towards technology, technological developments will not save the planet. The relationship between technology and the planet is merely a reflection of our own relationship with the planet. That is why Waag is working with artists, residents, designers and governments to develop new skills for engaging with our environment and other living beings around us.
What helps us is that in 2025, we have become a zoöperation, an organisational form that strives for a reciprocal relationship between organisation and ecology. This means that Waag seeks alternative, ecological ways of designing and using technology in its work.
We build on ideas such as permacomputing and zoöperation. With these skills, we can question, design and use technology from a regenerative perspective, “not to search for a 'perfectly green' alternative but to embrace new ways of thinking that prioritize long-term ecological resilience we can collectively inhabit. This is where alternative approaches to computation, revised assessment methods, and new models of governance come into play.” – Ola Bonati
In this way, Waag works towards technology that strengthens democracy and remains within the limits of the planet.
Would you like to know more about regenerative technology? Or would you like to get started with permacomputing? Then come to the workshop on Monday 24 November. Or get inspired by the Demonstrator: Designing Regenerative Technology.
