Do we need to send fewer ‘unnecessary emails’ to tackle the climate crisis?

Our individual choices about whether or not to send an email are unlikely to make much difference to our carbon footprints, scientists tell Daisy Dunne

Each day, millions of ‘unnecessary emails’ are sent back and forth from the devices of people living in the UK (iStock)

Each day, millions of “unnecessary emails” – a quick “thanks” or “haha” – are sent back and forth across the UK.

But these kinds of messages might be subject to new restrictions by British officials over fears that they are driving up the country’s carbon emissions, according to new report.

According to the FT, officials involved in preparations for next year’s UN COP26 climate change summit have been “looking at research suggesting that if you reduced those emails by just one a day, you would save a lot of carbon”.

However, scientists say our individual choices over whether or not to send the odd email are very unlikely to have a noticeable impact on our carbon footprints.

“People should not worry about their email footprint too much because they only have a small effect on it and it’s a relatively small part of their own footprint,” Prof Chris Preist, a researcher of sustainability and computer systems at the University of Bristol, tells The Independent.

“It is the job of the companies to worry about that because, when we combine all our little email footprints up, it’s big. And companies can do something about it by designing services more effectively.”

All of our online activities, from sending an email to streaming a programme, come with a minute carbon cost. This is because electricity is required to run our devices and the wireless networks that they are connected to. And all of our online activities are supported by vast data centres, which are operated by technology companies.

An analysis by the company Ovo Energy released last year said that, if every Briton sent one less email a day, it could save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year. (By comparison, emissions from the UK’s roads totalled 118 million tonnes in 2017.)

However, these calculations consider all the energy infrastructure that goes into a single email, said Prof Preist. This renders the choice about whether or not to send the email relatively insignificant, he explained.

“Your laptop will still be there, the energy to keep you internet powered will still be using the same amount of energy. And so, in the end, it will make very little difference to actual energy use, whether you send that email or not.”

In a tweet, Prof Mike Berners-Lee, who produced the calculations for Ovo Energy in 2019, said it looked like the “government had got the wrong end of the stick” from his research.

Individual emails require a lot less data than the streaming of programmes, adds Prof Mike Hazas, a research of digital technologies at Uppsala University in Sweden. “Video streaming accounts for 50 to 80 per cent of consumer traffic, depending on who you ask,” he tells The Independent.

However, even choices about whether to stream a show or not are unlikely to have a large impact on carbon emissions, the scientists say. The data centres that support our online activities account for around 0.3 per cent of the world’s total carbon emissions, according to some estimates.

The technology companies that operate these data centres are better placed than consumers to reduce online emissions, said Prof Preist. This could be achieved by making improvements to energy efficiency or by sourcing electricity for these centres from renewable energies, such as wind and solar power.

Consumers who are very keen to reduce the carbon footprint of their emails could try checking out the environmental credentials of their email providers, he said.  

“If we are going to be worrying about climate change, we should focus on the big things,” he added. “Focus on travel, the way we heat our homes and what we eat. Those are the three really big things.”

The Independent approached the government for comment.