Mr. Wansort refers to the quantitative analysis of Basile Fighiera, consultant-trainer in low-carbon strategy and digital sobriety, who explains that the carbon impact of an email varies depending on the uses and the configuration in which the email is written by the sender and read by the recipients. “From what type of device is the email sent? How many people? With or without attachment” writes M. Fighiera.
Basile Fighiera explains: “It is not the energy glut of servers that increases the carbon footprint of an email. Nor even the electricity necessary for its transport. These are the depreciation of the manufacturing of the computer or smartphone (the total carbon footprint of the equipment divided by the number of minutes of use over its entire lifespan) and the energy consumption of the equipment which have the most impact.”
According to him, 3.8% of greenhouse gas emissions are due to digital technology. “In France, digital technologies use a little more than 6% of the energy consumed. But that’s not all. It is at the material level that the ecological impacts are critical.” It incriminates the too rapid renewal of equipment and the multiplication of the latter (2 or even 3 screens per workstation, tablets, connected objects).
The richest 1% are responsible for 15% of carbon emissions
Computer or phone?
“We denounce the tiny gram of CO2 emitted with each email… While an hour of video can emit up to 400 g of CO2e“, analyzes Basile Fighiera on his blog. He compares this video to the short email without attachment, which weighs 10 KB, which emits 0.4 g CO2e if it is written and read on a smartphone with a 4G connection. “A short email with a large attachment (10 MB), written and read on a smartphone with a 4G connection to a recipient represents 1.8 g CO2e.
On the computer, it’s heavier, according to his blog: “An email with an attachment (1 MB) written on a computer with a Wi-Fi connection to 1 recipient: 3.3 g CO2e”. And what pollutes is multiplying the number of recipients: a short email without attachment (1MB), sent to ten recipients with a Wi-Fi connection pollutes at the rate of 4,9 gCO2e.
But that doesn’t exempt you from cleaning out your mailbox. Because if you are connected for eight hours a day to work, you are already consuming energy… and you are losing precious minutes of connection searching for the information you need, which is lost in the mass of your old useless emails.
How to avoid unwanted emails?
Green Office advice (ULiège sustainable development platform)
- reduce the number of emails we receive and send
- avoid subscribing to new newsletters that you will not read
- Configure applications like Facebook to not receive email notifications
- Avoid sending unnecessary emails to your contacts, and in particular avoid attachments
- Do not add unrelated people as copies
- Implement effective and time-saving cleaning (since the time the PC is on consumes a lot of energy. To do this, Green Office recommends software like Cleanfox to identify newsletters that you do not read, delete them and unsubscribe in one click: https://www.cleanfox.io/fr-fr/
