Adrien Berthelot

Contact

My e-mail address: adrien.berthelot (at) bristol.ac (dot) uk

Investigating environmental cost and reduction levers for large digital services in the context of the CANDISE research project.

The complete environmental footprint of digital usage: a contribution to life-cycle analysis of digital services

The thesis was defended on 12 November 2024 at the École Normale Supérieur de Lyon (ENS de Lyon).

D. Ekchajzer, A. Berthelot, J. Combaz, D. Schien. (2026). From Attributional to Consequential LCA: Which heoretical Framework for Assessing AI’s Environmental Impacts ? Currently in review. [link]
Berthelot A., da Silva Barros T., Lefèvre L., Ligozat AL. & Pegon E. (2026). Multi-criteria and multi-stage environmental study of Pl@ntnet service for the year 2024. Technical Report. [link]

Cook J., Jacob R., Walton J. L., Berthelot A., Hussain A. & Schien D. (2025). Beyond Counting Carbon: AI Environmental Assessments Struggle to Inform Net Impact Decisions. Currently in review. [link]
Zhang L., Reich R. H., Berthelot A., Schien D., Fröhling M. & Van Acker K. (2025). A Conceptual Model to Assess the Environmental Impacts of Digital Product Passports Accepted for the 33rd Conference on Life Cycle Engineering (LCE), Kamakura, Japan. In press. [link]
Plociennik C., Reich R. H., Berthelot A., Ruskoswki M., Van Acker K. & Schien D. (2025). Artificial Intelligence and Circular Economy: An Exploration of the Ecological Infosphere Accepted for the 33rd Conference on Life Cycle Engineering (LCE), Kamakura, Japan. In press. [link]
Berthelot A. & Schien D. (2025). The environmental footprint of data storage or what can lie behind a gigabyte. Accepted to publication at the 1st INFRASTRUCTURE workshop, Nantes, France. [To appear]
Schien D., Berthelot A., Shabajee P.J.S. & Preist C.W. (2025). Global Datacentre Electricity Consumption is not correlated with Data Demand: Responding to Implausible Assumptions and Flawed Modelling in Castro et al. 2024. Energy Policy,Volume 209, Part A, 114947. DOI:10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114947 [link]
Berthelot A., Caron E., Jay M. & Lefèvre L. (2025). Understanding the Environmental Impact of Generative AI Services. Communications of the ACM, Volume 68, Issue 7, 46-53 DOI:10.1145/3725984 [HAL]

Simon T., Ekchajzer D., Berthelot A., Fourboul E., Rince S. & Rouvoy, R. (2024). BoaviztAPI: A Bottom-Up Model to Assess the Environmental Impacts of Cloud Services. Accepted and presented at the HotCarbon'24 Workshop on Sustainable Computer Systems, Santa Cruz, USA. Published in ACM SIGENERGY Energy Informatics Review, Volume 4, Issue 5, 84-90. DOI:10.1145/3727200.3727213 [HAL]
Berthelot A., Caron E., De Laage R., Lefèvre L. & Nicolas A. (2024). Fine-grained methodology to assess environmental impact of a set of digital services. Currently in review. [HAL]
Berthelot A., Caron E., Jay M. & Lefèvre, L. (2024). Estimating the environmental impact of Generative-AI services using an LCA-based methodology. Accepted and presented at the 31st Conference on Life Cycle Engineering (LCE), Turin, Italy. Published in the Procedia CIRP, 122, 707-712. DOI:10.1016/j.procir.2024.01.098 [HAL]

March 2026. Understanding and modelling the environmental footprint of data storage: the complexity of usage patterns and the limitations of current approaches. Selected conference for Green-Days 2026, Sophia-Antipolis, France. Video (in french)

November 2025. AI’s Footprint: Environmental Responsibility in Research. Invited talk and Roundtable Discussion at the EDUC European Seminar for Doctoral and Post-doctoral researchers on AI in Research & Education, Rennes, France.Link of the event
March 2025. Empreinte environnementale du numérique : quels leviers de réductions pour quelles échelles ?. Invited talk at CIGREF-ANRT seminar, Paris, France.Speech summaries (in french)
March 2025. Des serveurs aux services, évaluer l'empreinte environnementale d'un système d'information et de l'ensemble de ses services. Selected poster for Green-Days 2025, Rennes, France. Poster

October 2024. Life cycle assessment and computer science: the What and the How. Invited talk at Eco-ICT 2024 Summer School, Fouesnant, France. Link of the event
October 2024. Lifecycle assessment as a tool and a field of research, contributions to digital sobriety. Invited talk at IRIT and LAAS-CNRS seminar on digital sufficiency, Toulouse, France. Video (in french)
June 2024. Towards a multi-criteria evaluation of the environmental footprint of generative AI services. Selected poster, with Mathilde Jay, for ICT4S 2024, Stockholm, Sweden. Poster
March 2024. Estimating and understanding the environmental impact of a generative AI service. Selected conference for Green-Days 2024, Toulouse, France. Video (in french)
March 2024. Countering the environmental impact of large digital infrastructures: levers, AI and life cycle. Invited talk: Responsible Digital Festival at École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, with Laurent Lefevre and Mathilde Jay, Saint-Étienne, France.

September 2023. LCA of a showcase website, a typical digital service use case. Selected conference, with Eddy Caron, Laurent Lefèvre and Alexis Nicolas for The 11th International Conference on Life Cycle Management(LCM), Lille, France. Video
March 2023. Digital service lifecycle analysis: definitions and challenges. Selected conference for GreenDays 2023, Lyon, France. Video (in french)
September 2022. Digital technology and the environment: false solutions and real problems. Invited talk: ENS de Lyon association for popular science conference Confér’ENS, Lyon, France.