How Your Digital and Email Hoarding is Accelerating Environmental Harm

Apart from your route, the internet, the information you pass through it, and the data you store in it don’t feel the same as tangible boxes in a storage unit. However, these minuscule bytes accumulate and leave their mark in unexpected ways. It takes tons of energy and resources to keep connectivity alive and this information intact. Much of it concerns emails, streaming, and tons of other daily digital habits that you might take for granted.

Taking Up Digital Space and its Impact on the Planet

Your digital storage habits contribute to the climate crisis in several ways. People have to store information somewhere, typically on hardware powered by servers and other advanced tech, like solid-state drives and cooling systems. Manufacturing these assets demands habitat destruction through rare earth minerals and heavy metal mining. It also uses tons of water over the course of the technology’s life to prevent overheating. 

This primarily occurs in massive data centers, which tech giants like Google, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft own. While they claim to report their impact authentically, experts suggest these buildings’ effects could be 662% worse than the companies say. These facilities also use tons of land, furthering species displacement and natural resource depletion. 

The inflation is due to many factors, such as the adoption of commercialized artificial intelligence (AI), the booming streaming service industry, and poor digital hygiene. The data deluge, or overgeneration and mismanagement of digital resources, bogs down systems and leverages fossil fuels to stay operational all day, every day. 

Because planned obsolescence is so common in the electronics industry, many of these items head to landfills long before they should. They leech chemicals into the soil and deepen poverty in areas where the e-waste is dumped.

Why Is Email Hoarding a Concern for Sustainability?

Hoarding is terrible for the planet because it encourages consumerism and the accumulation of material items with an end-of-life. These products eventually go to landfills, creating greenhouse gases and harming biodiversity, among other negative impacts. Around 19 million Americans hoard objects, and an intervention is necessary to ensure minimal environmental damage. Action should also rewire habits to prevent hoarding behaviors in the future. These mentalities translate into digital spaces, too.

What role does technology play in environmental degradation? When comparing the carbon footprint of mail to snail mail, you might be surprised to see digital documents are worse, partly because of their electricity usage. 

A year of standard mail averages around 136 kilograms of emissions. One email without an attachment causes four grams of carbon dioxide emissions. Adding an attachment bumps this up to 19 grams, and 50 grams with multiple or large documents and images. Multiply this by all the emails sent daily, including spam, and the impact is significant. 

The average office worker unnecessarily contributes to this digital storage problem by overusing the reply-all feature. It is one of many email behaviors that complicate data management by increasing information redundancy and backup requirements.

How Can People Reduce Their Digital Carbon Footprint?

Just as people can live a minimalist lifestyle, so can they adopt digital minimalism. Simply apply the same principles to digital spaces, including intentionality, mindfulness, and simplicity. In practice, this means unsubscribing from excessive newsletters, using attachment formats that require less space, and limiting social media use. Employees could also inquire about companies transitioning to green hosting services and energy-efficient hardware to minimize impacts more.

Regularly audit your digital footprint, cull what you don’t need, and share your experiences with others about how it improves your life and the planet.

Mindsets are usually what hold people back from dealing with digital clutter. There is resistance to deleting emails because people wonder if they will need to reference the information later. The anxiety driven by just-in-case questioning encourages accumulation and justifies climate ignorance. Here are several ways to overcome these thoughts:

> Use archiving features that reduce stress on active, native servers.

> Move to cloud storage because it has a lower impact than hardware.

> Discuss important email content with relevant people to determine its relevance.

> Take handwritten notes about potentially critical email information like order numbers or reminders in a safe space.

Another way to lower individual carbon footprint in digital spaces is to be more conscious about your relationship with streaming services. Consuming one hour of video content via a streaming service produces 55 grams of carbon dioxide emissions. The number gets higher as video quality increases. Consider breaking out old DVDs if you want a comfort show as background noise.

Many other activities netizens do every day contribute to the information accumulation and consumption problem. These include scrolling social media networks, perusing online storefronts, gaming in massive multiplayer environments, and mining cryptocurrency. You don’t have to stop all online activities that require data transmission. All people need is heightened awareness of its adverse effects.

The Invisible Impact of Digital Footprints

While cloud storage and hard drive storage don’t seem like top priorities compared to single-use plastics or slowly dying species, it is important to boost awareness. Activities like social media use and watching streaming services like Netflix leave a mark, as do hoarding emails. Everyone must choose at least one action today to change their relationship with digital storage and data consumption to alleviate environmental burdens on the planet.