Greening the Virtual: An Interdisciplinary Narrative Review on the Environmental Sustainability of the Metaverse

Abstract

As the Metaverse continues to evolve as a transformative digital ecosystem, its environmental implications remain insufficiently examined within academic discourse. Despite growing interest in its technological and societal impacts, there is a lack of comprehensive evaluations that synthesize existing knowledge on its sustainability potential. This interdisciplinary narrative review addresses this gap by critically exploring how Metaverse technologies intersect with environmental sustainability across key sectors, including education, healthcare, tourism, e-commerce, manufacturing, and urban development. Employing a narrative review methodology informed by a systematic selection of scholarly and industry sources, the study consolidates current practices, emerging opportunities, and notable trade-offs. While the Metaverse presents promising avenues for reducing material consumption, optimizing urban planning through digital twins, and lowering emissions via virtual alternatives to physical travel, it also raises pressing environmental concerns, particularly related to high energy consumption, short hardware lifespans, and the rebound effects of intensified digital engagement. The findings suggest that environmental sustainability within the Metaverse is not inherent to its virtual nature but hinges on deliberate design, regulatory foresight, and the broader energy systems it depends on. This review offers timely insights for policymakers, technology developers, and sustainability advocates seeking to align immersive digital innovation with ecological responsibility and long-term planetary health.

1. Introduction

As the planet grapples with escalating environmental degradation, rising global temperatures, and the depletion of natural resources, the call for sustainable alternatives has never been more urgent. Across every sector—from energy and transportation to education and urban development—there is a growing need for solutions that not only minimize ecological footprints but also promote long-term resilience [1,2]. Nevertheless, in the face of these persistent challenges, a novel and unconventional pathway has emerged—the digital realm [3,4]. More specifically, the Metaverse, often characterized as a convergence of persistent, immersive, and interconnected virtual environments, is being reimagined not just as a social or technological novelty, but as a potential ally in the pursuit of sustainability [5,6].

While the Metaverse has gained widespread visibility through applications in entertainment, gaming, and commerce, its relevance to environmental sustainability remains a relatively untapped area of scholarly inquiry [7,8]. This paper seeks to engage with that gap. The conversation around sustainability typically centers on tangible infrastructure—solar panels, electric vehicles, green buildings [9]. Rarely do we consider how intangible digital spaces might meaningfully contribute to reducing emissions, cutting waste, or reshaping human behavior toward more sustainable patterns [10,11]. And yet, if designed and deployed responsibly, the Metaverse might offer precisely such opportunities.

A recent systematic review examined the relationship between the Metaverse and sustainability by synthesizing publications up to 2022 [12]. While their work provides a valuable foundation, it is primarily focused on keyword clustering and high-level thematic categorization across limited sectors. In contrast, this study adopts an interdisciplinary narrative review approach that enables deeper integration of sector-specific insights, theoretical perspectives, and emerging empirical challenges. By focusing on applied domains such as education, tourism, healthcare, and urban development, this review contributes a more contextual and conceptually integrated understanding of the Metaverse’s environmental implications and sustainability potential.

This narrative review is rooted in an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from fields as varied as environmental science, computer science, urban planning, digital education, and industrial ecology. It does not treat the Metaverse as a monolithic technology but rather as a socio-technical ecosystem—an evolving interface between human users, immersive content, and underlying infrastructure. This broader lens allows for a more comprehensive discussion that goes beyond the novelty of virtual worlds and interrogates their real-world environmental implications.

To that end, this review explores both the potential and the paradoxes of the Metaverse’s role in advancing sustainability. On the one hand, virtual reality meetings could replace carbon-intensive business travel [13,14]. Virtual tourism might reduce the environmental burden of mass travel on ecologically sensitive sites [15,16]. Educational institutions could lower their physical infrastructure demands through persistent virtual campuses [17,18]. Cities could experiment with digital twins to optimize energy use before physical construction begins [19,20]. These are not just conceptual speculations—they are emerging use cases already under exploration.

Research Rationale

Yet, there is a flip side. Hosting immersive environments at scale demands vast computational power, high-speed data transfers, and the continuous operation of energy-intensive data centers [21]. Virtual reality headsets, like any other consumer electronics, come with their own lifecycle of raw material extraction, manufacturing, and eventual e-waste [22]. Blockchain-based transactions—often tied to virtual economies—are notoriously carbon-intensive [23]. In other words, the Metaverse could just as easily exacerbate environmental degradation if its growth proceeds without sustainability baked into its design.

To guide this exploration, the review is framed around three central research questions:

• What environmental benefits might be realized through the use of Metaverse technologies in domains such as education, tourism, industry, and urban planning?
• What environmental risks and trade-offs are associated with the technological infrastructure required to support the Metaverse?
• How can interdisciplinary strategies—spanning technology design, policy, ethics, and sustainability science—be harnessed to ensure that the Metaverse evolves in alignment with global environmental goals?

This review does not claim to offer definitive answers, but it aims to highlight the questions that must be asked if the Metaverse is to become more than just a digital playground for the affluent or a marketing buzzword for the tech industry. If the Metaverse is to have a seat at the sustainability table, it must be scrutinized with the same rigor we apply to physical systems. That means evaluating its full lifecycle impact, ensuring equitable access, building ethical frameworks, and above all, recognizing that virtual is not necessarily clean—unless it is intentionally made to be so.

By weaving together insights from multiple disciplines and synthesizing emerging literature, this review aspires to contribute to a growing discourse on sustainable digital transformation. It encourages scholars, designers, policymakers, and educators to think differently, not just about how we live, work, and learn in the digital age, but about how the tools we build for the virtual world might help safeguard the one we physically inhabit.

2. Materials and Methods

This study employs a narrative review methodology to examine the environmental sustainability potential of Metaverse technologies across various domains (see Figure 1). A narrative review is particularly appropriate when the goal is to synthesize existing knowledge across diverse and evolving fields, enabling a critical and contextualized understanding of complex phenomena [24,25].

This narrative review was chosen over a systematic review due to the emerging and interdisciplinary nature of the Metaverse and environmental sustainability discourse. The aim is to conceptually synthesize and critically interpret diverse contributions rather than statistically aggregate findings. Although some basic publication statistics are included to contextualize the scope and growth of the literature, these serve only as background framing, not as a basis for systematic analysis.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of the research topic—spanning computer science, environmental studies, urban planning, education, and sustainability science—this approach allows for conceptual integration rather than statistical aggregation, which is typical of systematic reviews or meta-analyses.

2.1. Review Design and Scope

The review was designed to address the following guiding research questions:

• What environmental benefits might be realized through the use of Metaverse technologies in domains such as education, tourism, industry, and urban planning?
• What environmental risks and trade-offs are associated with the technological infrastructure required to support the Metaverse?
• How can interdisciplinary strategies—spanning technology design, policy, ethics, and sustainability science—be harnessed to ensure that the Metaverse evolves in alignment with global environmental goals?

These questions were developed to guide the identification, selection, and synthesis of relevant literature and to ensure alignment with the overarching objective of assessing both the opportunities and limitations of the Metaverse in contributing to sustainability.

2.2. Sources of Information

A comprehensive literature search was conducted across several academic databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar, between January and April 2025. The search strategy included combinations of the following keywords and Boolean operators:

• “Metaverse” AND “sustainability”
• “virtual reality” AND “environmental impact”
• “digital twins” AND “smart cities”
• “immersive learning” AND “climate education”
• “blockchain” AND “energy consumption”
• “carbon footprint” AND “virtual environments”

The keyword combinations were derived from an initial scoping review and reflect the interdisciplinary intersections of the Metaverse with environmental, technological, and sectoral sustainability domains. The time range of 2015–2025 was selected to capture a full decade of relevant developments—spanning the foundational emergence of immersive technologies to their more recent sustainability applications.

Inclusion criteria prioritized peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, institutional reports, and high-impact white papers published between 2015 and 2025, with an emphasis on literature published in English. Gray literature from credible organizations (e.g., UNEP, World Economic Forum, IEEE, and OECD) was also considered to capture emerging insights not yet fully covered in academic publications.

2.3. Selection and Screening Process

The selection process followed three stages:

• Initial Screening: Titles and abstracts were screened to assess relevance to the core themes of Metaverse technology and sustainability.
• Full-Text Review: Selected articles were then reviewed in full to evaluate their methodological quality, contextual relevance, and interdisciplinary contribution.
• Thematic Mapping: Studies were organized according to thematic categories such as energy efficiency, virtual tourism, smart city simulations, digital education, e-waste, and sustainability frameworks.

This thematic mapping helped build the structure for analysis and ensured comprehensive coverage of both the benefits and drawbacks of Metaverse deployment.

2.4. Data Synthesis and Interdisciplinary Integration

Rather than applying quantitative meta-analysis techniques, the review employed qualitative thematic synthesis, consistent with narrative review protocols [24,26]. Insights were organized around two major dimensions:

• Environmental Opportunities (e.g., carbon reduction through dematerialization, energy-efficient virtual design, etc.).
• Environmental Risks (e.g., data center energy use, VR hardware e-waste, and blockchain-related emissions).

Special attention was paid to how different disciplines approach sustainability through the lens of digital technology. For example, insights from urban planning literature on digital twins were triangulated with computer science studies on simulation efficiency, and environmental policy frameworks were examined alongside software engineering best practices for green computing.

2.5. Quality and Rigor

While narrative reviews are inherently flexible, care was taken to ensure transparency, depth, and methodological rigor. This included maintaining a detailed audit trail of the literature selection process, applying inclusion/exclusion criteria consistently, and engaging in peer debriefing with interdisciplinary researchers to validate thematic categorizations and interpretations.

3. Results

This section presents a thematic synthesis of how Metaverse technologies are being applied across multiple domains with implications for environmental sustainability. While primarily descriptive, this mapping serves as a foundational layer for the author’s critical analysis and interdisciplinary insights, which are further developed in Section 4. The intention is to organize current knowledge by sector and identify recurring sustainability themes, challenges, and opportunities across the literature.

This review uncovered a broad range of insights into how the Metaverse may contribute to environmental sustainability across applied sectors. Rather than analyzing the technology in isolation, this section explores its potential and limitations through the lens of key societal domains, e.g., education, healthcare, tourism, e-commerce, manufacturing, and urban development. Each subsection integrates interdisciplinary literature and highlights the sector-specific environmental implications of adopting Metaverse technologies.

To provide a contextual overview of the academic landscape, basic bibliometric data on publication types and trends are presented. This is intended to frame the field’s development and guide the reader on the breadth and maturity of existing research, without deviating from the narrative review framework.

The analysis of publication types (Figure 2) reveals a strong dominance of journal articles, which constitute the majority of the reviewed sources, totaling 56 entries. This reflects the maturity and academic interest in the topic across peer-reviewed literature. Book chapters follow with eight contributions, indicating interdisciplinary engagement and the inclusion of the Metaverse and sustainability topics in edited academic volumes. Conference papers are limited to just two entries, suggesting relatively lower representation of this topic in conference proceedings. Only one book was identified, pointing to a limited number of comprehensive monographs in this area. Overall, the distribution highlights that journal publications serve as the primary vehicle for disseminating scholarly insights into Metaverse applications and sustainability.

As evidenced by publishing trends (see

Table 1. Yearly distribution of reviewed publications (descriptive overview to support narrative framing).

Year	Number of Reviewed Publications
1997	1
2004	1
2005	1
2012	1
2015	2
2016	1
2017	1
2018	1
2021	3
2022	7
2023	5
2024	25
2025	18

), interest in the Metaverse’s environmental effects has grown steadily and recently, quite significantly. Only a small number of studies from 1997, 2004, and 2015 made significant contributions prior to 2020. Although they established the framework, these early works did not amount to a thorough academic discussion. That changed dramatically starting around 2021. Its increasing popularity is demonstrated by the 25 studies that have been published on the topic by 2024. The momentum resulted in 18 more publications in 2025. As shown in Table 1, this quick development shows that the relationship between digital innovation and environmental responsibility is becoming more and more important to researchers. This rapid growth may be attributed to a convergence of driving forces, including accelerated advancements in immersive and AI technologies, increasing global emphasis on climate action and green digital transformation, as well as intensified marketing and strategic positioning by major technology companies promoting the Metaverse as part of future sustainability agendas. As the Metaverse continues to develop from idea to reality, more people are participating in the conversation by asking questions about the environmental effects of virtual worlds and the potential for creation in them.

Moreover,

Table 2. Disciplinary themes and sustainability enhancements via Metaverse adoption.

Discipline	Sustainability Enhancement via Metaverse
Education	Reduces campus infrastructure usage, commuting emissions, and paper consumption through immersive virtual classrooms. Enables virtual environmental education to foster ecological awareness.
Healthcare	Decreases patient and staff travel emissions, reduces use of disposable training materials, and limits energy consumption through remote diagnostics and virtual training.
Tourism	Minimizes air and ground travel, alleviates pressure on ecologically sensitive destinations, and reduces emissions by offering immersive virtual alternatives to physical tourism.
E-Commerce and Retail	Dematerializes product interactions by enabling virtual try-ons and digital goods, potentially reducing material waste and energy used in supply chains—contingent on energy-efficient infrastructure.
Manufacturing and Industry	Lowers prototyping waste and manufacturing errors via digital twins and simulations, helping optimize energy use and resource planning before physical production.
Urban Development	Supports energy-efficient city planning using digital twins to simulate urban infrastructure, reducing trial-and-error material use, and supporting low-carbon decision-making.

presents the results of the thematic analysis conducted on the reviewed literature, highlighting how Metaverse technologies can contribute to sustainability across various disciplines. The following sections will delve further into each of these fields, examining in greater depth the environmental implications of integrating the Metaverse within their specific contexts.

Moreover, to address the guiding research questions of this review, the results are organized into three layers. First, Section 3.1–Section 3.6 examine domain-specific applications of the Metaverse and their potential environmental implications. Second, Section 3.7 synthesizes these insights into three overarching categories: environmental benefits, environmental risks, and interdisciplinary strategies. This structure enables a sector-by-sector understanding while drawing connections to the broader sustainability themes identified in the research questions.

3.1. Education: Toward Low-Impact, Immersive Learning Ecosystems

The educational sector emerges as a key arena where the Metaverse is being piloted to create fully immersive virtual classrooms [27,28,29]. In terms of sustainability, the implications are twofold. First, shifting instruction to persistent virtual environments can reduce the physical demands of campus-based infrastructure, such as lighting, cooling, paper consumption, and student commuting [30]. Studies estimate that online learning can lead to more than 30% reduction in per-student carbon emissions when compared to traditional modes, especially in higher education settings where students often travel long distances [31,32].

Second, immersive learning offers novel opportunities for environmental education itself. Virtual experiences allow learners to observe the melting of glaciers, simulate the impact of urban pollution, or visualize biodiversity loss from a first-person perspective [33]. These experiences may cultivate ecological empathy, especially among students with limited access to field-based education. However, hardware requirements and bandwidth demands could counterbalance environmental gains if devices are not designed with lifecycle sustainability in mind [34].

These observations on virtual learning suggest that the Metaverse can offer significant environmental benefits through dematerialization, but also raise concerns about hardware-related e-waste—insights that are revisited in Section 3.7 within the broader risk–benefit framework.

While virtual classrooms offer environmental advantages, such as reduced commuting and paper usage, their effectiveness in fully substituting physical education remains uneven. Disciplines requiring laboratory work, hands-on practice, or embodied learning may find virtual modalities inadequate. Furthermore, digital access gaps across regions could reinforce educational inequalities, suggesting that the sustainability potential of virtual education is highly dependent on infrastructure readiness and pedagogical alignment.

3.2. Healthcare: Remote Diagnostics and Resource Reduction

In healthcare, the Metaverse enables virtual diagnostics, surgical planning, and therapeutic interventions within immersive digital environments [35]. From a sustainability perspective, virtual consultations and simulated medical training reduce the need for inter-hospital transport, printed materials, and in-person facility use [36]. For example, training medical professionals via VR-based procedures has been shown to significantly cut down on plastic anatomical models, disposable instruments, and energy-intensive lab usage [37,38,39].

Furthermore, the reduction in patient travel for routine consultations can meaningfully lower healthcare-related transportation emissions [40,41]. That said, sustainability gains vary significantly based on health system infrastructure and digital literacy.

Despite the sustainability advantages of virtual healthcare interventions, their adoption is not uniformly beneficial across all patient demographics. For instance, elderly patients or those with limited digital literacy may find telemedicine platforms challenging, potentially compromising accessibility and care quality. Moreover, while virtual medical training reduces resource use, the absence of tactile feedback may limit its effectiveness in some procedural disciplines, indicating that virtual healthcare should be viewed as a supplement rather than a full replacement in many contexts.

3.3. Tourism: Immersive Travel Without the Carbon Cost

The tourism industry, long scrutinized for its substantial carbon footprint, presents a compelling case for Metaverse-driven sustainability [42,43]. Virtual tourism—offering immersive 3D explorations of heritage sites, museums, or natural parks—can decouple travel experiences from physical mobility [44,45]. Several platforms are already providing virtual safaris, cultural reenactments, or historical site walkthroughs, all of which reduce air travel and over-tourism pressures on fragile ecosystems.

Environmentally, the shift from physical to virtual visits could significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions, particularly those associated with long-haul flights [46,47]. However, such gains depend on user adoption, quality of experience, and platform accessibility. Critics also caution that virtual tourism may not replace travel but instead act as an additional layer of media consumption, potentially encouraging rather than displacing real-world visits [48,49]. However, the extent to which virtual tourism can effectively substitute for physical travel remains contested. Several studies indicate that rather than fully replacing traditional tourism, virtual experiences often function as complementary media that may even inspire future in-person visits [48,49]. Additionally, the substitution effect appears to vary across consumer segments; for example, younger, tech-savvy users in high-income countries may be more receptive to virtual alternatives, whereas older or experience-driven travelers may view them as inferior or supplemental. These cultural and demographic factors highlight the need for context-specific adoption strategies.

3.4. E-Commerce and Retail: Dematerializing Consumer Habits

The rise of virtual storefronts, avatar-based shopping, and digital goods marketplaces introduces the potential to “dematerialize” consumption [50,51]. Virtual fashion, for instance, allows users to dress their avatars in designer clothing that never physically exists [52]. Theoretically, this could reduce fabric waste, dye runoff, and carbon emissions from fast fashion supply chains [53].

Some brands are also integrating blockchain to authenticate and sell limited edition virtual items [54]. While this innovation may appeal to sustainability-conscious consumers, its environmental success is tied to the underlying blockchain protocol. Proof-of-work systems, still used in many NFT transactions, have been criticized for their extreme energy demands [55]. Thus, while e-commerce in the Metaverse may reduce certain types of waste, it may simultaneously introduce invisible emissions unless supported by low-energy infrastructure.

Although digital fashion and virtual product experiences can theoretically reduce material waste, the environmental impact of such innovations depends heavily on the underlying technologies used. If implemented on energy-intensive platforms (e.g., blockchain-based NFT marketplaces), they may offset ecological gains. Additionally, it remains unclear whether consumers will actually shift from physical to digital consumption or simply add digital purchases on top of existing behaviors, thereby reinforcing a new layer of demand rather than reducing environmental load.

3.5. Manufacturing and Industry: Sustainable Prototyping and Virtual Twins

In manufacturing, the use of digital twins—high-fidelity virtual replicas of machines or production processes—has opened new avenues for energy-efficient product development [28,56]. Virtual simulations allow companies to test various configurations, anticipate inefficiencies, and design for modularity before physical production begins [57]. Ref. [58] demonstrates a practical application by integrating digital twins with time-series networks to forecast regional development trends, further validating their energy-optimization potential. This minimizes the waste associated with traditional prototyping and reduces downtime and energy waste in factories [59,60,61].

Moreover, supply chains visualized in the Metaverse can support more transparent logistics, allowing managers to identify inefficient shipping routes or excessive inventory storage [62,63]. However, these systems require continuous streams of sensor data, real-time updates, and immersive visualization—all of which rely on high computational throughput and sustained power consumption [64]. Without green data centers and optimized software, the sustainability promise may be undercut by backend energy use [65].

While digital twins and simulations offer sustainability gains through waste reduction and prototyping efficiency, their deployment is not without challenges. Many small- to medium-sized manufacturers lack the resources or technical capacity to adopt such tools, limiting their real-world diffusion. Additionally, the data infrastructure required to sustain real-time simulations can be resource-intensive. These realities underscore that the benefits of virtual manufacturing are more likely to be realized in technologically mature contexts.

3.6. Urban Development and Smart Cities: Simulating Low-Carbon Futures

Smart city initiatives have been among the most active adopters of Metaverse infrastructure [5,66]. Urban planners now use immersive simulations to engage citizens in environmental decision-making, model traffic flows, and experiment with zoning policies for energy-efficient development [67,68]. This is exemplified by [58], who propose predictive modeling using digital twins for optimizing urban energy infrastructure. For instance, digital twin cities have been used to simulate flood mitigation strategies, green roof effectiveness, and solar exposure for housing developments [69,70].

These tools help reduce the trial-and-error cycle of urban development and support more evidence-based planning. Additionally, participatory Metaverse platforms enable more inclusive and democratic planning processes, potentially leading to more socially and ecologically resilient outcomes [5]. Still, their use remains concentrated in technologically advanced cities. Scaling these tools equitably across different income levels and urban densities remains a challenge.

The use of digital twins in smart city planning holds promise, but its impact varies significantly based on a city’s technological maturity and governance capacity. In high-income urban centers, such platforms may enable citizen engagement and energy optimization, but in resource-constrained environments, such tools could exacerbate digital divides. Moreover, questions remain about data governance, algorithmic transparency, and long-term maintenance, which are critical to ensuring that digital urban planning supports both environmental and social sustainability goals.

For example, a recent study by [71] presents a concrete case of how digital twin models can enhance predictive accuracy and improve production scheduling using advanced algorithms, reinforcing their real-world utility for reducing energy waste in smart manufacturing contexts [71].

3.7. Cross-Sectoral Analysis of Environmental Benefits, Risks, and Interdisciplinary Strategies

This subsection synthesizes evidence from multiple sectors to examine how Metaverse technologies intersect with environmental sustainability. It takes a balanced view by mapping both the potential benefits and the inherent risks, while also highlighting strategies that draw from interdisciplinary perspectives. The discussion proceeds in three parts: first, it outlines the direct and indirect environmental gains observed in domains such as education, healthcare, tourism, commerce, and manufacturing; second, it critically evaluates the associated risks and trade-offs, including energy demands, hardware lifecycles, and rebound effects; and finally, it proposes cross-sectoral strategies for implementing the Metaverse in ways that align with sustainability goals. This integrated approach aims to provide a nuanced foundation for policymakers, technologists, and researchers seeking to maximize ecological benefits while mitigating adverse impacts.

3.7.1. Environmental Benefits of Metaverse Applications

The integration of Metaverse technologies across diverse sectors—such as education, healthcare, tourism, commerce, and manufacturing—presents a multilayered set of implications for environmental sustainability. While the emerging literature points toward several promising avenues [27,28,35,42,50,66], these impacts remain context-dependent and often contingent on underlying infrastructural and policy variables.

Direct environmental gains are most evident in the displacement of physical activities with digital equivalents. For example, virtual learning environments may reduce carbon emissions associated with commuting, classroom lighting, and campus infrastructure, particularly when institutions adopt persistent virtual campuses [30,31,32]. Similarly, in healthcare, applications such as telemedicine and remote diagnostics could lower emissions by minimizing patient and practitioner travel [36,40,41]. In tourism, virtual alternatives to in-person visits—especially those substituting long-haul flights—have the potential to mitigate high-emission activities, though the scalability of such alternatives is still under investigation [44,46,47].

Indirect benefits are more diffuse but potentially transformative. The adoption of digital twins in urban planning, industrial production, and infrastructure management facilitates anticipatory modeling, which may reduce material waste and optimize ecological outcomes [57,59,60]. In commercial domains, developments such as avatar-based shopping, virtual product simulations, and immersive consumer experiences may gradually shift behavioral preferences toward less materially intensive forms of consumption [52,53,54]. Nonetheless, these benefits are often mediated by socio-economic and cultural contexts that shape adoption trajectories and usage intensity.

3.7.2. Environmental Risks and Trade-Offs

The review also reveals a set of sustainability trade-offs that merit critical attention. The technological infrastructure underpinning Metaverse platforms—including data centers, extended reality (XR) hardware, and ultra-low-latency networks such as 5G and beyond—demands high energy input [64,65]. This demand becomes particularly problematic in regions where electricity is primarily generated from non-renewable sources [55]. Furthermore, environmental externalities related to hardware production, such as rare-earth mineral extraction, short device lifecycles, and insufficient e-waste recycling protocols, are often overlooked in platform-centric sustainability narratives [34].

A further concern involves rebound effects. In several scenarios, increased efficiency through virtualization does not lead to net reductions in environmental impact but instead catalyzes new patterns of digital consumption. For instance, while virtual tourism might offer an alternative to physical travel, it could also operate as a complementary activity that increases total energy expenditure by expanding the overall scope of tourism-related services [48,49]. In such cases, the environmental calculus becomes more ambiguous, underscoring the need for lifecycle assessments and regulatory frameworks that account for both direct savings and emergent forms of digital demand.

Although this review emphasizes thematic synthesis, select studies provide quantitative estimates of the environmental impact associated with Metaverse infrastructure. For instance, VR headsets are estimated to consume between 10 and 20 watts per user per hour, while the operation of large-scale data centers has been shown to emit between 200 and 500 g CO₂-equivalent per kWh, depending on regional energy sources. A recent life cycle assessment of cloud-based streaming platforms found that an hour of high-resolution 3D content delivery can result in up to 55 g of CO₂ emissions per user—a figure that may scale significantly in immersive Metaverse environments. Such preliminary data highlight the urgent need for context-specific, full-spectrum LCA tailored to XR and blockchain-driven systems [72,73].

3.7.3. Interdisciplinary Strategies for Responsible Implementation

The sustainability impact of Metaverse adoption, therefore, is highly context-dependent. Its net environmental benefit hinges on several critical variables:

• The energy mix powering data centers and network infrastructure.
• The hardware lifecycle, including repairability, recyclability, and responsible disposal.
• The behavioral dynamics of users—whether Metaverse applications replace or simply add to existing activities.
• The policy frameworks that regulate, incentivize, or constrain environmentally damaging practices within virtual ecosystems.

To fully harness the sustainability potential of the Metaverse, implementation must be accompanied by intentional strategies for green platform design, renewable energy integration, ethical hardware sourcing, and regulatory oversight. Without these measures, the Metaverse could exacerbate digital inequalities and environmental degradation, rather than mitigate them.

4. Discussion

The findings derived from this interdisciplinary narrative review reveal a complex interplay between Metaverse technologies and environmental sustainability. Across sectors such as education, healthcare, tourism, commerce, and urban planning, the Metaverse presents both opportunities and contradictions—environmental benefits exist, but they are not evenly distributed, nor are they automatic. This section reflects on the broader meaning of these findings, offering theoretical contributions, practical guidance, policy recommendations, and avenues for future inquiry.

4.1. Theoretical Implications

From a conceptual standpoint, the intersection of the Metaverse and sustainability challenges several assumptions within both fields. The Metaverse has often been theorized as a purely digital or post-material space. Yet, this review highlights that such spaces remain deeply rooted in material infrastructures—data centers, hardware production, and global energy grids—all of which carry environmental consequences [74]. This calls for a rethinking of digital dualism (the assumption that digital and physical realities are separate and distinct rather than entangled), particularly within theories of virtualization, which often separate physical from virtual impacts. The findings here suggest a hybrid ontology (a conceptual view that treats virtual systems as materially embedded extensions of the physical world); that is, virtual environments are not abstract escapes from the physical world, but rather extensions of it, embedded in planetary systems.

At the same time, sustainability theory must contend with emerging “virtual ecologies” (which refer to the socio-technical systems composed of platforms, infrastructures, algorithms, and user behaviors with ecological consequences)—networks, platforms, and behaviors that influence real-world resource flows. Concepts such as dematerialization, substitution, and circularity require new definitions when applied to digital ecosystems. For instance, virtual consumption may reduce physical goods production, but it can also create new forms of energy use that remain poorly understood in traditional lifecycle models.

This notion of hybrid ontology resonates with theoretical insights from actor network theory (ANT) [75], which emphasizes the entanglement of human and non-human actors in socio-technical assemblages. From this perspective, the Metaverse can be seen not as a separate digital realm but as a networked extension of material infrastructures, shaped by servers, code, energy systems, and user interactions. Similarly, post-phenomenology provides a useful lens by focusing on how technologies mediate human-world relations [76]. Rather than conceiving the Metaverse as a representational layer over reality, post-phenomenology invites us to see virtual environments as embodied experiences that co-shape perception, behavior, and ecological engagement. These theoretical perspectives help move the conversation from a dualistic framing toward a more integrated understanding of how digital ecosystems, like the Metaverse, are materially enacted and ecologically implicated. Future empirical studies could use ANT to trace how digital and material actors—such as users, headsets, energy systems, and data flows—co-produce virtual ecologies. Post-phenomenology, meanwhile, offers tools to explore how immersive systems shape user perception, potentially guiding the design of more ecologically conscious digital environments.

The critique of “digital dualism” aligns with and challenges earlier perspectives that have treated virtuality as immaterial or detached from ecological concerns. For instance, early techno-optimist narratives (e.g., [77]) and certain strands of information society theory (e.g., [78]) often emphasized the liberating and dematerializing potential of digital spaces, implicitly underestimating their material dependencies. This review instead positions virtual environments—including those within the Metaverse—as components of what may be termed virtual ecologies, that is, systems that are energetically, materially, algorithmically, and behaviorally sustained.

To better conceptualize these virtual ecologies, we propose a multi-dimensional sustainability lifecycle framework. This preliminary model comprises five interrelated layers, as follows: (1) energy infrastructure, (2) hardware systems (e.g., XR devices), (3) data generation and storage, (4) algorithmic operations (e.g., rendering, recommendation systems), and (5) user interaction patterns. Each layer introduces distinct ecological pressures—from embodied carbon in devices to rebound effects in digital behavior—and their interplay defines the true sustainability footprint of the Metaverse. This layered approach offers a more comprehensive theoretical lens for assessing the environmental impact of immersive virtual systems and invites empirical refinement in future work.

By drawing on such theories, this review contributes to extending the sustainability discourse beyond infrastructure and policy to include the ontological framing of virtuality itself. The Metaverse is not immaterial—it is a socio-technical phenomenon rooted in material dependencies, shaped by design logics, and embedded within planetary systems of energy, extraction, and waste.

4.2. Practical Implications

For practitioners—technologists, designers, educators, and business leaders—the review offers several actionable insights. First, sustainability must be addressed as a design problem, not a retrofit. Platforms should be built with energy efficiency, modularity, and longevity in mind. Developers of immersive technologies must move beyond speed and immersion as primary goals, integrating metrics such as energy use per interaction, device repairability, and software lifespan.

In education, institutions piloting Metaverse classrooms should evaluate not just pedagogical outcomes but also carbon accounting. Is the shift from physical to virtual delivery leading to actual reductions in campus emissions? Are virtual labs reducing consumable usage, or simply adding another digital layer to existing practices?

For businesses exploring e-commerce in the Metaverse, the review suggests caution in framing virtual goods as inherently sustainable. The sustainability of a virtual product is not only about its immateriality but also about the energy, computation, and marketing structures it rides upon. Digital greenwashing—using virtual aesthetics to suggest environmental responsibility without actual accountability—is a growing risk.

Urban planners and architects working with digital twins must also be mindful of data ethics and energy costs. While simulations can reduce waste during design phases, their continuous operation must be assessed through an ecological lens, not just a technical one.

4.3. Policy Implications and Recommendations

The findings point to a significant policy gap in how digital sustainability is governed. Most countries maintain regulations for energy-intensive industries, waste management, and emissions from buildings and vehicles. Yet, few have developed frameworks for assessing the environmental impact of immersive digital systems, virtual economies, or real-time data ecosystems.

To address this gap, several recommendations emerge. First, governments and international bodies should develop digital environmental impact assessments (D-EIAs) for large-scale Metaverse projects. These assessments could evaluate projected server energy consumption, e-waste generation, and social inequalities introduced by immersive access.

Second, sustainability certifications for virtual platforms—analogous to LEED for buildings or ISO standards for manufacturing—could guide industry practices. Metrics might include carbon intensity per user hour, hardware recyclability, and software optimization scores.

Third, incentives for green infrastructure must extend to data centers powering Metaverse environments. Tax reductions for renewable-powered computing, mandatory carbon disclosures for platform operators, and subsidies for circular electronics are all tools that could align the digital economy with environmental targets.

Fourth, international cooperation is essential. Given the global nature of virtual environments, sustainability cannot be governed by any one jurisdiction. Cross-border standards, led by coalitions of digital and environmental agencies, will be necessary to ensure accountability.

Moreover, the transition of data centers and network infrastructure to renewable energy sources is not only a technical issue but also a political one. As [79] argues, stable political conditions are essential for attracting renewable energy investment, which in turn supports the sustainability of infrastructure underpinning the Metaverse [79]. A stable policy environment can significantly accelerate the decarbonization of the digital backbone supporting the Metaverse.

Furthermore, while the proposed regulatory strategies offer general guidance, it is important to recognize that policy approaches will need to vary by region based on local infrastructure capacity, energy sourcing, digital maturity, and regulatory culture. For instance, the European Union is well-positioned to lead in the establishment of digital environmental impact assessments (D-EIAs) and platform sustainability standards, given its track record in regulating digital services (e.g., the Digital Services Act) and its commitment to the European Green Deal.

In contrast, several Asian countries such as China, South Korea, and Singapore are advancing immersive technology deployment through state-backed innovation ecosystems, where sustainability considerations can be integrated through centralized planning and public–private partnerships. These contexts may benefit more from integrated national frameworks rather than bottom-up compliance schemes.

To further operationalize these recommendations, policymakers could implement specific, trackable initiatives such as mandating annual sustainability reporting for large-scale Metaverse platforms (e.g., data-center emissions, device e-waste volume), offering tax credits for certified carbon-neutral virtual applications, and creating public registries of eco-certified immersive services. These measures would not only incentivize green innovation but also provide measurable indicators—such as percentage reduction in server energy intensity or volume of recycled XR hardware—to evaluate policy impact over time. Embedding such outputs into digital governance frameworks would ensure that sustainability goals are both enforceable and transparent.

4.4. Future Research Directions

This review opens several promising avenues for further inquiry. First, there is a need for quantitative studies that measure the actual energy use, emissions, and waste associated with Metaverse deployments. Lifecycle analyses specific to VR headsets, spatial computing platforms, and 3D rendering engines would provide critical data to support or challenge prevailing assumptions.

Second, user behavior within Metaverse environments deserves more study. Do virtual alternatives actually reduce physical consumption, or do they simply repackage it? Does exposure to immersive environmental simulations translate to long-term behavioral change?

This remains an open question in the current literature. While some early studies suggest digital alternatives can lower consumption-related emissions, comprehensive empirical evaluations—particularly those comparing behavioral substitution versus augmentation effects—are still limited. Future research should focus on lifecycle assessments and behavioral impact studies to determine whether virtualization leads to genuine net reductions or simply reshapes demand across platforms.

Third, research on digital justice and environmental equity in Metaverse systems is vital. Who has access to low-energy devices, renewable-powered platforms, or carbon-neutral digital tools? How might new digital infrastructures exacerbate or mitigate global inequalities in sustainability access?

Fourth, interdisciplinary collaboration is essential. Environmental scientists, AI researchers, ethicists, urban designers, and behavioral economists must work together to build models that reflect the true complexity of digital sustainability. This includes designing common sustainability vocabularies, shared data repositories, and testbeds for low-carbon virtual systems.

Lastly, scholars should explore the symbolic and psychological dimensions of sustainability in virtual spaces. What cultural meanings do users assign to virtual nature, carbon footprints, or digital cleanliness? How might these meanings influence or distort collective action on climate change?

5. Conclusions and Research Limitations

The promise of the Metaverse has often been framed in terms of immersive experiences, digital innovation, and the reshaping of human interaction. But as this review has shown, its implications extend further–into the material systems we rely on, the energy that powers our lives, and our engagement with the environment. At a time when ecological limits are increasingly visible, it becomes essential to ask whether new technologies such as the Metaverse are part of the solution or a subtle extension of the problem.

This review does not offer a simple answer. Instead, it paints a picture that is at once hopeful and cautionary. In education, healthcare, tourism, and beyond, the potential to reduce physical waste, limit unnecessary travel, and rethink resource use is real. Yet that potential is neither automatic nor universal. Whether the Metaverse serves sustainability depends on a long chain of decisions—some technical, some behavioral, and many political.

Perhaps the most important insight here is that sustainability in virtual environments is not an abstraction. It is embedded in the electricity that powers servers, the metals used in headsets, the lifespan of devices, and the culture of consumption that often follows technological excitement. The environmental consequences of the Metaverse may be out of sight, hidden in server farms and mineral extraction sites, but they are no less real.

To think of the Metaverse as “immaterial” is misleading. It is constructed from tangible resources and sustained by global systems of energy, labor, and production. Its sustainability, then, will not be decided by developers or designers alone—but by the coordination of sectors, the choices of users, and the frameworks built by regulators.

This review aimed to bring together these threads, not to resolve them, but to offer a lens that is interdisciplinary and rooted in the lived complexity of applied sectors. It is an invitation to continue the conversation—not only about what the Metaverse can do, but what it ought to do in a world that can no longer afford to build new futures without regard for the planet that sustains them.

Research Limitations

There are, of course, limitations to what this review could achieve. First, the scope of the study was intentionally broad, and while that breadth allowed for a panoramic view across sectors, it also meant that some areas—especially those with sparse empirical data—were covered more speculatively than others. The review leans heavily on conceptual arguments and thematic patterns. It does not, and cannot, claim to offer definitive carbon calculations or lifecycle data for every domain.

Second, the literature in this space is rapidly evolving. What holds true today may shift within months as new technologies emerge or sustainability efforts are scaled. The Metaverse is not a static system—it is a moving target, shaped by innovation, adoption, and policy in real time. This review reflects a snapshot, not a final word.

Third, there is an inherent limitation in how sustainability was framed. While the focus here was on environmental sustainability, other dimensions—particularly those related to social equity, psychological well-being, and ethical design—deserve deeper treatment. These themes surfaced often, but they were not the primary axis of analysis. A more comprehensive approach would weave these strands together to understand how virtual spaces intersect with justice, accessibility, and inclusion.

One of the key limitations in current Metaverse sustainability discourse is the scarcity of comprehensive quantitative studies, particularly life cycle assessments (LCAs) of VR/XR devices, blockchain-based assets, and immersive platform operations. Future research should focus on generating sector-specific empirical data on energy consumption, embodied emissions, and hardware-related waste. This would enable more robust comparisons with traditional activities (e.g., business travel, manufacturing) and strengthen the evidence base for policy and design decisions.

Lastly, like any narrative review, the findings here are shaped by the selection of sources and the interpretations drawn from them. Bias is inevitable, and while efforts were made to incorporate a diverse range of disciplinary voices, some perspectives may be underrepresented, especially from regions where Metaverse adoption is limited or still emerging.

That said, these limitations do not diminish the urgency of the questions raised. On the contrary, they underline the need for more data, more cross-sector dialogue, and more critical inquiry. If the Metaverse is to evolve into a space that contributes to sustainability rather than undermines it, then the work of thinking through its implications—honestly, rigorously, and collaboratively—has only just begun.