How to reduce your digital carbon footprint

What’s a digital carbon footprint?

Your digital carbon footprint is the total carbon emissions generated by your online activities — from streaming videos, playing games and scrolling on social media to downloading files, attending remote meetings and sending emails.

The internet has transformed nearly every aspect of human life, reshaping the world in profound and multifaceted ways. It’s fundamentally reshaped society — connecting people, empowering social and environmental movements and driving innovation across nearly all sectors of the global economy. But as reliance on digital technologies grows, so does the associated energy consumption. This surge in energy demand contributes to carbon emissions and climate change, increases resource depletion and worsens environmental degradation.

More than five billion people worldwide have internet access. As more industries digitalize, the demand for energy-hungry technologies will escalate, further straining already stressed ecosystems and compounding social and environmental inequities. Addressing rising digital carbon footprints requires collective action at individual and institutional levels.

Every click counts: The environmental impact of digital activity

The internet functions like a vast web of roads connecting different places. Information travels across these networks in data packets containing information of all sorts.

Every single online action — whether you’re sending an email, watching a video or browsing social media — uses energy to send requests from your devices to servers in data centres. The warehouses of the internet, data centres store and process vast amounts of information. Though essential to online activities, they have an enormous environmental impact.

Energy use

Though advanced data centres owned by massive internet entities like Google and Facebook have pledged to become carbon neutral by 2030 via carbon offsetting and investment in renewable energy infrastructures such as wind and solar, most draw power from non-renewable energy grids. Data centres and data transmission networks are responsible for nearly two per cent of energy-related carbon emissions — on par with the aviation sector!

Water use

To prevent servers from overheating, data centres support cooling processes with enormous amounts of water. An average Google data centre uses approximately 1,703,435 litres of water every day.

Data centres are often built in drought-stricken areas. According to 2021 research, about 20 per cent of those in the United States rely on watersheds under moderate to high drought stress. Many draw from potable water sources, depleting drinkable water communities need.

Land use

Data centres use vast amounts of land for construction, operation and infrastructure development. This often leads to deforestation, habitat destruction and biodiversity loss. A data centre proposal in Virginia gained significant attention in 2022 when it was revealed it would require rezoning 2,100 acres of land. More than 30 regional and national organizations came together to emphasize the irreversible long-term environmental costs.

Marine disruption

There are nearly 1.5 million kilometres of submarine fibre optic cables at the bottom of the ocean. The backbone of internet connectivity, they carry telecommunication signals throughout the world. Their installation, maintenance and decommissioning phases have caused physical habitat disturbances, and chemical and noise pollution. Noise pollution has been linked as a cause of mass stranding of dolphins and whales, resulting in untimely deaths. During operation, their long-term effects include heat emission, electromagnetic field radiation, chemical pollution and creation of artificial reef and reserve effects, which cause physical habitat disturbances and ecological disruption.

Source: Plan Be Eco

Nine ways to reduce your digital carbon footprint

Enjoy the benefits of being connected to the internet while reducing your digital carbon footprint.