Why Free up your Server Space?

Have you ever thought your unread, unnecessary, and spam emails affect the environment? Have you ever heard about the world’s Digital carbon footprint? No worries, today, we will explore how emails cause CO2 emissions that affect the environment, why it is essential to free up server space, and some tips to free up the server space.

As we are experiencing the advantages of the digital world, sharing or receiving data from one source to another is pretty easy. As a result, electrical devices and the volume of data we use and store is increasing enormously, thus increasing the percentage of CO2 emissions. Sending or receiving an email can leave a Digital Carbon Footprint.

What is a Digital Carbon Footprint?

The Digital Carbon Footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere by the daily activities of an individual or organization. As we know, greenhouse gasses trap the heat inside the atmosphere and lead to the overheating of the earth.?

Apart from the excess use of fuels for transportation, heat, and electricity, the digital world is also responsible for forming a carbon footprint. A history of data used through the internet, including websites, emails, video streaming platforms, etc., causes the emission of CO2. For every social media update like blogs, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, Twitter Tweets, or emails, we use an enormous amount of data that relatively increases electricity consumption, which further leaves a Digital Carbon Footprint.

The data shared through the internet are being stored in big data centers that consume an enormous amount of electricity daily. We also know that electricity is mainly generated from fossil fuels such as coal, nuclear energy, and other gasses, which results in the emission of CO2.?

To simplify, let’s check out the average amount of CO2 emitted from emails.

For standard email: 4g of CO2e (CO2e- Carbon dioxide equivalent)

For spam email: 0.3g of CO2e

For email with attachments: 50g of CO2e

There are around 2.3 billion email users around the world. As per a report, it is estimated that over 300 billion emails are sent daily, emitting 438 megatons of CO2 annually. Deleting unnecessary emails could prevent the data stored in the servers and ultimately reduce electricity use to maintain the servers.

The energy used to store 1GB of data costs over 32kWh. Now calculate your used storage space and realize how much you are responsible for your Digital Carbon Footprint.

Tips to reduce Digital Carbon Footprint

We can reduce the Digital Carbon Footprint with the following simple tips:

1. Delete the Emails: Delete the unwanted emails and unsubscribe to the sites or brands you are no longer using.?
2. Delete the History of data: Delete the unnecessary data stored in your devices, which are further stored in data centers that require electricity. It is estimated that a video can generate around 12g of CO2 per minute. So, declutter the unnecessary information on the server and free up your server space.
3. Move to the cloud: Cloud servers can save around 90% of CO2 emissions. Instead of establishing IT infrastructure, cloud technology can help to save money and space.
4. Reduce the size of your device: Instead of using a Computer for simple tasks, use your smartphone to reduce the screen size. It ultimately reduces the amount of power consumption for processing.
5. Unplug the devices: Unplug the devices before leaving the place, and you can set your computer to sleep when you go for a short coffee break. It saves over 92% energy compared with leaving them running.
6. Reuse and recycle: Think of repairing your current device before buying a new one. Remember to discard your old electronic devices in recycling bins to reduce the landfill.

Top companies like Google are transforming the data infrastructure to be more efficient and greener aiming to reduce the emissions of CO2. It is our responsibility to take time from the day and discard all the unwanted emails, images, videos, and other files to free up the server space.?