The impact of emails on the environment… Really?
Are you sure? Are you sure that sending that email with a cute kitten gif to your colleague that is sitting next you is a good idea?
If you wait to press the send button and you keep on reading I will explain to you why you should stop sending unnecessary emails, and why the environment is going to thank you.
A study commissioned in 2019 by the energy company Ovo shows that people in the UK send more than 64 millions of unnecessary emails every day. The report also mentions that if everyone would send one less unnecessary email, 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year would be saved. Breaking the number in something more quantifiable, this would also mean not taking 81,152² flights to Madrid or taking 3,334³ diesel cars off the road.
According to this study, the 5 most popular unnecessary emails sent daily are:
- Thank you
- Thanks
- Have a good weekend
- Received
- Appreciated
for the other 5 you can check out the report here
The take away of this is: “Be rude and save the environment”
Okay, so we’ve got the point, emails increase everyone’s carbon footprint, but why is that?
Let’s try to focus on the process an email goes through, in the writing, sending and receiving phase.
While your typing an email your laptop is using electricity. For a “plain” email this electricity amounts to 4g of CO2 emissions, while if it contains an image, the number becomes 50g of CO2 emissions. After you send it, the email goes through a network, and guess what? This also needs electricity to work. It goes without saying that also receiving an email and also storing the email on a cloud require electricity. So now you get why and where these emissions are generated.
Now I am worried, what can I do?
The first advice I will give you is try to be more complete when write your emails. Include all the important information in one email, reply to all the questions asked. This wont only be appreciated by the environment, but also by who is receiving it, as there is nothing more annoying that looking, asking and waiting for missing info. Secondly, try to avoid these unnecessary emails.
This tool is widely used and it is unthinkable to just quit sending emails, but reducing the amount of it, it’s easily achievable.
Lastly, I leave you here a link that will blow up your mind. This calculator will tell you how much you pollute with your daily emails. The results are mind blowing, but being aware is the first step to change.
Talk soon folks,
El
Resources used for this story:
https://www.cwjobs.co.uk/insights/environmental-impact-of-emails/#resultContainer
