It’s maybe one of those things that you haven’t really thought about – the environmental impact of your digital footprint. Any time you spend time online you increase your digital footprint, but how bad for the environment is it?
What is a Digital Footprint?
“A digital footprint is a trail of data you create while using the Internet. It includes the websites you visit, emails you send, and information you submit to online services.” – TechTerms
Literally everything you do online adds to your digital footprint. This includes sending and even saving emails, posting on social media and visiting a website. When you visit a website it will normally log details of your IP address, your internet service provider (ISP), your location, maybe even your gender. Your internet search history, saved by some search engines is also part of your digital footprint. Even liking a post on facebook or instagram increases your footprint as the social media company has to save that data on their servers.
How can a digital footprint be bad for the environment?
There are several ways that our increasingly digital lives can have a detrimental effect on the planet. Every time we log on and send an email is an increased demand for electricity. The more information a server is storing the more electricity is used. Additionally the tools we use to access the digital world, such as computers, phones and even smart watches all use valuable resources. These digital tools become obsolete fairly quickly as technology improves, meaning an awful lot of electronic waste.
“Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. Used electronics which are destined for refurbishment, reuse, resale, salvage recycling through material recovery, or disposal are also considered e-waste. Informal processing of e-waste in developing countries can lead to adverse human health effects and environmental pollution.
Electronic scrap components, such as CPUs, contain potentially harmful materials such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, or brominated flame retardants. Recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to health of workers and their communities.” – wikipedia
Environmental Impact of Different Digital Activities
There’s an awful lot of data and comparisons out there about the environmental impact of different digital activities. It’s difficult to know which data to believe or trust as much of it seems to contradict itself and much of the data is based on estimates. However I’m going to give as much information as I can about the environmental impact of different things we do online to give you some sort of an idea of the environmental impact of your own digital footprint.
I’ve always found it hard to get my head round how online activity can increase your carbon footprint, so I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible. Many articles I’ve read just make it more complicated to understand… I’ve quoted the articles that made the most sense to me and which seem to have cited the most reliable sources.
The Carbon Footprint of Sending, Receiving and Storing Emails
It was believed until very recently, and still is by many people (including myself until I researched this article), that sending, receiving and storing emails could actually have had a relatively large carbon footprint, especially when you took into consideration the number of people sending emails every single day. Mike Berners-Lee, brother of Tim who invented the world wide web, wrote a book called “How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything”, which was published in 2010. It contained the following estimated figures:
“The average carbon footprints of different emails:
An average spam email: 0.3 g CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent)
A standard email: 4 g CO2e
An email with “long and tiresome attachments”: 50 g CO2e
60.5 spam emails x 0.3 g CO2e = 18.5 g CO2e
30.25 standard emails x 4 g CO2e = 121 g CO2e
30.25 emails with attachments x 50 g CO2e = 1512.5 g CO2e
This means that a days’ worth of emails received is equal to 1,652 g CO2e…
And that one years’ worth of emails received equals 603,393 g CO2e or 0.6 tonnes CO2e”
When you look at those figures for one person and then multiply that by how many people are sending emails every day, the CO2e emissions sound terrifying.
However, in 2020, Mike Berners-Lee tweeted…
The BBC article he linked to states; “Rather than worrying about relatively low-impact emails, some researchers suggest we should turn our attention to services such as game and video-streaming and cloud storage which have a much larger effect.” And goes on to say “What really makes a difference is buying less kit, and keeping it for longer,” Prof Preist explains. “But even this is small fry compared with your travel, heating your home, and what you eat.”
There’s no denying that sending emails does contribute to your carbon footprint, and although it actually accounts for a very small percentage of your overall footprint you can still reduce it:
How to reduce the carbon footprint of your emails
- Only send an email if you really need to.
- Ensure all the relevant information is contained in one email, negating the need for follow ups.
- Reduce the size of any attachments wherever possible or link to online resources rather than including attachments.
- Delete all spam.
- Unsubscribe from any online newsletters you no longer read.
- Delete any emails you no longer need.
- Make sure any email signature is simple and contains little or no html elements.
The Carbon Footprint of Watching Netflix
“Published this month by climate group the Carbon Trust, with backing from DIMPACT – a collaboration between researchers from the United Kingdom’s University of Bristol and 13 major entertainment and media companies, including Netflix – the study examines the carbon impact of video-on-demand services with the goal of helping streaming companies become more sustainable. Streaming’s environmental impact is “very small,” conclude researchers, who say watching one hour of video-on-demand streaming generates the equivalent of 55 grams of carbon dioxide emissions.
That means the carbon footprint of streaming is equivalent to that of boiling an average electric kettle three times, or to that of popping four bags of popcorn in the microwave.
The larger the device, the greater the impact. For example, the carbon footprint of watching one hour of streaming video on a 50-inch television is roughly 4.5 times that of watching on a laptop, and approximately 90 times that of watching on a smartphone”
How to reduce the carbon footprint of watching Netflix
- Do you really need a massive TV? Use a smaller device!
- Stop watching stuff online and go for a nature walk.
The Carbon Footprint of Cryptocurrency
I’m not even going to pretend that I understand cryptocurrency and the obsession some people have with bitcoin. All I can tell you is that I know some people have made a lot of money trading in bitcoin. I’ve read a lot of articles about the environmental impact of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and I can’t claim to understand it in its entirety. They made the news not so long ago when Elon Musk of Tesla said that he would no longer accept bitcoin due to the environmental impact of mining it. So what is it and what’s the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency?
“Unlike mainstream traditional currencies, bitcoin is virtual and not made from paper or plastic, or even metal. Bitcoin is virtual but power-hungry as it is created using high-powered computers around the globe.
At current rates, such bitcoin “mining” devours about the same amount of energy annually as the Netherlands did in 2019, data from the University of Cambridge and the International Energy Agency shows.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency, which was once a fringe asset class, has become increasingly mainstream as it is accepted by more major U.S. companies and financial firms.
Greater demand, and higher prices, lead to more miners competing to solve puzzles in the fastest time to win coin, using increasingly powerful computers that need more energy.
Bitcoin is created when high-powered computers compete against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles, an energy-intensive process that often relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal, the dirtiest of them all.
Bitcoin production is estimated to generate between 22 and 22.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, or between the levels produced by Jordan and Sri Lanka, a 2019 study in scientific journal Joule found.”
How to reduce the carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies?
Honestly… I still don’t understand what bitcoin mining is. All I can tell you is that ‘green bitcoin’ is being talked about and with increasing awareness of carbon emissions, for bitcoin to survive they will have to be more sustainable. If the current carbon footprint of bitcoin mining alarms you, then don’t get involved. What can I say? If you understand this better and can explain it in simple terms please let me know.
The Carbon Footprint of NFT’s
If, like me, the concept of cryptocurrencies are out of your comfort zone welcome to NFT’s, which are even more baffling to me. NFT stands for nonfungible token. It is in fact a cryptocurrency but one which represents a one of a kind piece of digital art.
What is an NFT?
“NFTs have been around since 2017, when the first mainstream experiment in crypto-collectibles emerged: CryptoKitties. The average price for one of these cat cards was about US$60 back then. But that’s chicken feed compared to current takings. Rights to a single digital image recently sold at auction for US$69.3 million (£50.2 million). CryptoPunk 7804 (a crudely drawn alien with a pipe) sold for US$7.5 million. A house on Mars was purchased for US$500,000. A digital house that is, not one that you might live in.
When you buy an NFT, you’re buying a unique certificate of ownership, which is locked away on an immutable distributed database known as a blockchain. The creator of the artwork generally retains the copyright and in most cases, you own little more than bragging rights.”
The Carbon Footprint of an NFT
“Because they depend on a blockchain, NFTs use a lot of energy. Most creators still use Ethereum, a blockchain secured using a similar proof-of-work system to Bitcoin. This involves an energy-intensive computer function called mining.”
The French digital artist Joanie Lemercier recently canceled the sale of six works after calculating the associated energy costs. The sale would use, in just 10 seconds, enough electricity to power the artist’s entire studio for two years”
It seems like such an odd thing to want to own – a piece of ‘art’ that you actually don’t own and don’t have the copyright for. I know art is subjective but… It seems that there’s been a lot of backlash to the sale of NFTs with many digital artists backing out of sales when they find out the true environmental impact of the sale.
How to reduce the carbon footprint of NFTs?
- Carbon offsetting is obviously one way forward here, but not selling or buying NFTs in the first place seems far more sensible.
Is your Digital Footprint Harmful to the Environment?
If you’re not involved in “mining” bitcoin or buying NFTs and instead just spend your time, as many of us do, browsing the web, binge watching a few Netflix shows and sending some emails, then your digital carbon footprint probably isn’t that bad. There are of course ways to reduce the impact of your online activity:
- Stop buying the very latest technology and use what you already own for as long as possible
- Recycle or repair any ‘broken’ equipment such as TV’s, smartphones etc
- Get rid of your cinema screen sized TV and downgrade to a smaller one that uses less energy
- Only charge laptops and phones when they need to be charged rather than leaving them plugged in
- Go outside and switch off your electronic devices!
I have to say that researching this article has made me feel better about the fact that most of my day is spent online. I’d read so many articles about the devastating impact of emails and streaming services such as Netflix that I really started to worry about my increasing carbon footprint. However, I now realise that although any online activity has a carbon footprint, some of it really is negligible and there are far better ways to reduce our overall carbon footprint than worrying about something as silly as sending an email. Just don’t tell my boyfriend I said that because he’ll be really smug that he was right!
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Resources
The Carbon Cost of an Email
Can sending fewer emails really save the planet?
What is the Carbon Footprint of your Netflix Habit?
How Big is Bitcoins Carbon Footprint?
