What we do online accounts for around 3.7% of global emissions which is akin to the same amount of carbon produced by the airline industry. We don’t think about our digital life having a massive carbon output but it does and we can reduce it easily while sitting down.

 

There are lots of mind boggling numbers and vagueries about how many grams of carbon your daily email traffic costs our planet and much cleverer people than me have done the sums and their links and resources are below.

 

Maybe you could spend a rainy afternoon decluttering your digital life.

 

1. Delete old email accounts that you no longer use - you don’t need them.

2. Delete old social media accounts.

3. Delete emails that are over 2 years old.

4. Unsubscribe from all those annoying companies cluttering your inbox.

5. Go through your digital videos and photographs and delete all the ones you hate, those that feature your thumb and the floor and those you took for someone else and have already sent.

6. Storing photos and documents on your hard drive has a lower carbon footprint than storing on the cloud.

7. If like me you need fast access to images on the cloud - swap to cloud storage powered by renewables- an easy guide is located in resource 2

 

Make new digital habits

 

1. Sending attachments has a bigger digital footprint than sending a link to documents.

2. Emails that Cc and Bcc unnecessary people multiply the co2 emissions by the amount of recipients 

3. Sending really long email trails has a bigger co2 output than a short email.

4. Lots of emails in a day to the same person have a bigger output than one email so really think about your communications before you press send.

 

 

Computers, Mobiles, Tablets and other Devices

 

We are beholden to big tech companies who stop updating software for older phones but as a consumer we do have power.

 

1. Only replace your device when it cannot be repaired 

2. When replacing your phone, consider a fairphone.

3. Powering up a desktop and a laptop uses much more energy than a phone or tablet - if you can do it on a smaller device then do it.

4. Switch off devices completely when you are not going to use them for several hours.

 

 

Resources and Sources.

1.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think

2.

https://www.climatecare.org/resources/news/infographic-carbon-footprint-internet/

3.

https://www.fairphone.com/en/