I had never considered if or how my online presence affects the planet. Each day we are bombarded with the outcries of global warming signals, the effects of microplastics littering our oceans, or the environmental harm of fossil fuels. So I try my best to recycle, eat organic, and bring my own reusable bags to the grocery store because we’ve been told that these small things can have an effect on our individual environmental footprints. But nobody talks about how our email habits could have an impact on the environment too.
Like many others, I find myself scrolling through some form of social media or online communication app basically every day. I don’t really think much about it. Even when I am working on school projects, I admit I always have my email accounts (yes, I have multiple) open on my desktop just in case someone sends me an important message. Be it a professor, student peer, coworker, or even a spam newsletter informing me of some big online sale that I just have to look at, I constantly keep my email open and active. But I’ve justified this habit because unlike Instagram or Facebook, where the mindless act of scrolling has me wasting away hours of my day, I believed that my email was relatively harmless.
But the email isn’t just some innocent cloud of organized correspondence. Surprisingly, it takes a lot of energy to fuel our mailboxes. In order to send an email, you must first be connected to the internet (duh), which must be connected to a much larger electronic system. In other words, these systems are made up of wifi routers that sync to a larger data center – all of which are powered by electricity. It seems a bit confusing at first, but just imagine a big web where all the small intricate strings lead to large pillars – like Google. Studies suggest that the world’s data centers have increased their energy usage by six per cent between 2010 and 2018, accounting for about one per cent of the global energy use each year. Which, I’ll admit, doesn’t seem like a lot.
But even though this percentage seems low, it is only relative to the overall global energy used. These data center systems are becoming bigger and bigger every year as more people are relying on the internet in their daily lives. This is likely due to societal demand for technology improvements and advancements. So, what does this have to do with your email account?
Emails contribute to this large, energy-demanding system. The annual amount of CO2 accumulated by one person’s email habits is equivalent to a gas-powered car driving 200 miles. Or in other words, every 65 emails sent uses the same amount of energy it would take to drive a mile. More than this, it is estimated that four grams of CO2 is produced from a single standard email, in regards to its energy usage. Emails with attachments, such as PDF files, are even worse offenders, as they account for 50g of CO2 per email. Even though these figures seem minuscule in comparison to other carbon emitters, the CO2 accumulated from the energy it takes to send billions of emails each day is quite surprising. So yes, even the small act of sending an email does seem to have some environmental impact. It’s not just as simple as clicking send; it takes a whole system of energy-sucking resources.
Spam emails especially use a great deal of energy, despite only equating to an average of 0.3 grams of CO2 each. The sheer quantity of spam emails that get sent daily sends this energy usage over the edge. It was estimated that in 2019, 107 billion spam emails were sent daily to users worldwide. The power used in spam mail alone would power 2.4 million homes. It is no secret that if you have access to an email account then receiving daily spam emails is inevitable. I myself get dozens on a weekly basis. But if you ask me, that is a hell of a lot of wasted energy.
So, what can we do?
- Unsubscribe from online newsletters: Stop encouraging companies to send you spam mail – no matter how good the sale is. Sure, we can’t completely avoid getting spam mail, but we can cut back on the number of voluntary newsletters you receive. Stop signing up for the monthly newsletter that you never read.
- Only click ‘send’ if you really need to: Consider if your drafted email has value and needs to be sent. Perhaps you can combine multiple emails into one. Again, this is just about minimizing the number of emails being sent out.
- Send a text instead: It is true that sending a SMS text message is a more environmentally-friendly means of communication. This is because sending a text only equates to an average of 0.014 grams of CO2, which is significantly less than an email.
Although sending an occasional email isn’t the end of the world, it is a part of a CO2-producing system that requires lots of energy to run. So if you needed an excuse to clean out your inbox and unsubscribe from the spam newsletter, here it is.
Image: Brielle Quon/The Cascade
Sydney is a BA English major, creative writing student, who has been a content contributor for The Cascade and is now the Opinion editor. In 7th grade, she won $100 in a writing contest but hasn’t made an earning from writing since. In the meantime, she is hoping that her half-written novels will write themselves, be published, and help pay the bills.
