The Carbon Footprint of an Email

 Did you know that sending one email can contribute to the global warming? A recent study showed that an average email generates the equivalent of about 50g of CO2 in the atmosphere, or five plastic carrier bags. Mike Berners-Lee, the brother of the man who invented the World Wide Web, crunched the numbers to calculate the exact carbon footprint of an email. Emails use electricity to process, store, and distribute them, so a single email can cause up to 0.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

An email, however, has a low carbon footprint compared to many other daily activities. A short email alone adds around four grams of CO2e to the atmosphere. This carbon footprint is far smaller than those of driving a car or flipping a light switch. On the other hand, opening a bottle of water or sending a text message has a less obvious carbon footprint. While these actions may seem insignificant compared to the carbon footprint of a single car, they still produce a significant amount of CO2e.

While email is a highly effective marketing channel, it still has a considerable carbon footprint. Recent research conducted by OVO Energy suggests that email marketing is responsible for a significant portion of this global warming emissions. According to the company, on average, retailers send two EDMs a week. This equates to a global carbon footprint of 8.84 tonnes per year. The study also found that email campaigns with high open rates result in a lower carbon footprint than those sent to unsubscribed recipients.

In addition to the volume of emails sent, the attention people pay to each email has a huge impact on the global warming impact. Unlike spam, each email sends 0.3g of CO2e, while shorter messages produce almost 10 times as much carbon dioxide. Hence, it's important to consider how to minimize the carbon footprint of an email. If you want to learn more about the carbon footprint of an email, check out these helpful resources.

The global warming problem is a failure of the global economy and individual consumer choices. While email emits little compared to other sectors, it is a good start for broader discussions about climate change. However, a professor from Lancaster University argued that the carbon footprint of an email should not be a focus of environmental activism, but rather on more pressing questions in the IT world. So the next time you need to send an email, make sure to choose renewable energy sources.

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, email production and consumption account for 3.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, email storage is a carbon-intensive process. According to the World Wide Web Institute, over 280 billion emails are sent Carbon Credit Capital day around the world, which is equivalent to 410 million tonnes of CO2 annually. Greenly, a mobile application, can reduce the carbon footprint of an email. And what about your mobile device?

The carbon footprint of an email is much smaller than the carbon footprint of a regular text message. According to Tim Berners-Lee, a regular text message has a carbon footprint of 0.014g CO2e. This is almost 700 times smaller than an average human's carbon footprint of 30 kg. According to French IT expert Frederic Bordage, the carbon footprint of an email is about as low as a single banana.

Email emissions increase with the length of the email. Emails longer than 500 words typically contain more than 100 words, and only take three seconds to read. Attachments and images can result in emails with up to 50g CO2e. The vast majority of these emissions are from the embodied carbon of the device, with smaller emissions due to the energy used by data centers, networks, and servers. The carbon footprint of an email can increase significantly if it contains long, tiresome attachments.

According to a recent study, a single email can cause up to 1g of carbon emissions. That's about the weight of a paperclip. This doesn't sound like a lot, but when you consider that the average Brit sends 64 unnecessary emails per day, it really isn't. Aside from a huge amount of carbon emissions, it also creates the illusion of convenience. Those "nice" emails could result in a significant reduction in emissions.