To halt further climate change, computing, along with the rest of society, must reduce, and eventually eliminate, its carbon emis- sions. Recently, many researchers have focused on estimating and optimizing computing’s embodied carbon, i.e., from manufactur- ing computing infrastructure, in addition to its operational carbon, i.e., from executing computations, primarily because the former is much larger than the latter but has received less research attention. Focusing attention on embodied carbon is important because it can incentivize i) operators to increase their infrastructure’s efficiency and lifetime and ii) downstream suppliers to reduce their own op- erational carbon, which represents upstream companies’ embodied carbon. Yet, as we discuss, focusing attention on embodied car- bon may also introduce harmful incentives, e.g., by significantly overstating real carbon reductions and complicating the incentives for directly optimizing operational carbon. This position paper’s purpose is to mitigate such harmful incentives by highlighting both the promise and potential pitfalls of optimizing embodied carbon.
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Considering the Corporeal to Facilitate Research to Practice Transitions
The authors suggest that the research-to-practice gap, such as that found in evidence-based management, is due in part to a lack of attention to embodied knowledge. The recommendation is for change agents to bring attention to embodied knowing when implementing change based on research. Three approaches for introducing increased corporeal understanding are proposed. These include embracing the embrained body including attending to kinesthetic resistance, exploring what research means for intersectional bodies, and working with corporeal metaphors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1760585
- PAR ID:
- 10292631
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Academy of Management annual meeting proceedings
- ISSN:
- 2151-6561
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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