When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, we are all familiar with the significant impact of transportation, heavy industry and power. However, one hidden source has slipped under the radar, despite most of us using it every single day, the carbon impact of the Internet.
According to Nature, if the internet was a country, it would be the sixth largest polluter. This is largely owing to the electricity used by data centres, transmission & end users. As a former digital marketer, this is a sobering thought. For there are many industries that rely solely on the internet to exist.
Some shocking statistics have been collated that quantify the amount of carbon released by performing common online actions. For example, sending an email can result in between 4 and 50g (with a large attachment) carbon released into the atmosphere. Browsing YouTube for 1 hour can emit 10kg of carbon. One search on Google is equivalent to 0.2-07g of carbon entering the
gases that surround our planet.
These figures are particularly shocking given the regularity with which we use the internet. More than 64 million unnecessary emails are sent per day in the UK alone! Scale this up globally and billions of unnecessary emails are being sent, each releasing harmful emissions into the atmosphere.
The most common useless emails include thank you emails and LOL. If we all sent one less email per day, we would save more than 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year, the same as 81.152 flights to Madrid. Surely awareness of this impact should be more widespread in offices, giving people the chance to consider their own contributions to GHGs.
The carbon from emails has great potential to be easily reduced. It is more difficult to reduce the environmental impact of the websites that we visit daily. That’s why web designers Wholegrain Digital have signed a sustainability manifesto, committing to creating a sustainable internet.
Wholegrain Digital believe that there are several ways to make websites more energy efficient, including restricting video usage & writing clean code. The bonus being more user-friendly websites.
Use this carbon calculator to estimate the carbon impact of your website.
Despite the amount of electricity used by the internet, technological advances are being promoted as an eco-friendly solution to reducing GHGs. For years we have been encouraged to go paperless & store everything online.
Has anyone weighed up the energy used to send an email compared to the carbon impact of sending a letter on recycled paper?
Undoubtedly, advanced technology and widespread digitalisation can offer increased energy efficiency in an over-exploited world. However, we must not forget that there isn’t one simple solution to reduce our carbon footprint. We should be weighing up the environmental impact of all options. Just as we should be considering the impact of every email we send.