Save our Planet by Deleting Emails

When you think of things that have a negative impact on our environment you would generally look at cars, the meat industry as well as other things that end up making our carbon footprint as massive as it currently is. However, even though a lot of people think that these are the only things that affect the world that we are currently living in, the fact of the matter is that a big part of our carbon footprint comes from the technology we use on a day-to-day basis. 
 

Below are 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 

Globally, annual spam energy use totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh). That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes, with the same greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion U.S gallons of gasoline. 

Spam filtering saves 135 TWh of electricity per year. That’s equivalent to 13 million cars off the road. 

But what can you do as an individual? 

1. Reduce the size of emails by lowering the resolution and compressing images and avoid large HTML elements.
2. Regularly clean and maintain mailing lists.
3. Remove any contacts that unsubscribe, and update changed email address immediately.
4. Check your emails thoroughly before sending to ensure they contain all the necessary (and correct) information, to avoid the need for a follow-up email.
5. Link to files or information online rather than adding an attachment.

It is important that we act on the climate crisis where we can, and although reducing the carbon footprint of your emails is a part of the solution, it’s also important to be aware that, in most cases, its unlikely to make a significant impact to reduce your carbon footprint. There are, however, lots of easy wins – simple actions which will reduce your carbon footprint in a significant way. 

🍃At The EcoFairy, our goal is to help you build a more sustainable life by offering you a line of reusable products. We offer products that last and that will help you reduce the amount of plastic you use.    

More info on our website: https://www.theecofairy.com