03 Aug Sustainability Tip: Delete Emails!

How many unread emails do you have in your inbox?
How many read emails do you have in your inbox?
How many active email addresses do you have?

The answers to these questions add up to a huge carbon footprint.

Experts estimate that 1.7 million gigabytes (GB) of storage space would be freed if everyone deleted ten emails. TEN! This is because emails (much like everything else we use smartphones for) are stored on “The Cloud.”

It’s not a literal cloud, as we hope people already know; The Cloud is a massive network of data centers around the world. These data centers produce and consume colossal amounts of energy. For us regular people, it seems like an immeasurable amount of energy to house this information and keep it retrievable at an instant’s notice. Additionally, these data centers cannot function in a warm environment, which translates to needing to be highly air conditioned 24/7 so that the computers doing the work for us do not overheat.

All of this ultimately means that The Cloud produces more carbon than the entire airline industry—the ENTIRE airline industry!

We recommend you take some time to:

1️⃣ Completely delete emails. Don’t just move them to your trash file (where they will remain for 30 days or so before your email system trashes them); go into the trash file, select all, and delete permanently.

2️⃣ Unsubscribe from email lists that you don’t need, which is probably most of them.

3️⃣ Delete old email messages in your inbox that are no longer relevant, such as:
–receipts for items you cannot return
–delivery confirmations
–order confirmations
–“your information was updated” notifications
–appointment reminders that have already passed
…the list goes on, and on.

The answers to the questions in the beginning of this caption are important; think about them, share this with your friends and family, and discuss those answers.

This is a problem that we can all help solve by taking action, and spreading awareness to inspire others to do the same.