From Click to Carbon: Understanding Email's Eco-Impact

In today's era, most people have at least two email addresses: one for personal usage and one for professional purposes. It's a normal practise to use our email addresses to log in to numerous online services such as meal delivery, cab booking, or online shopping. Unfortunately, we frequently ignore or fail to read and comprehend the significance of the "Opt-ins" or "Email Subscription" options throughout this procedure. As a result, we are bombarded with promotional emails from these businesses. Our standard approach to these emails is to classify them as spam or delete them. We rarely bother to unsubscribe from such email lists, largely because many unsubscribe buttons redirect us to a questionnaire page in which we are not interested to participate.

We often underestimate the environmental impact of our online actions. Every promotional mail that we get has a carbon footprint. While it may seem that a few promotional emails wouldn't harm the environment, but most of us don’t even know of how the internet operates. The fundamental infrastructure behind internet mail transfer includes data centers, satellite and submarine cable infrastructure, DNS servers, local ISP infrastructure, end-user devices, and more. The critical component in this system is the electrical power supply, which serves as its backbone. When we take a broader view of climate change and clean energy, it becomes clear that our simple actions, such as unsubscribing from promotional emails or carefully considering "Opt-in" and "Email Subscription" options, can make a significant difference.

Illustrative diagram for understanding mail transfer via internet

According to an estimate as of 2023 there are nearly 4.37 billion email users which is estimated to increase nearly to 4.7 billion email users by 2026. In 2023 nearly 347 billion emails are sent every day which is 4.23% more than 2022, i.e. in 2022 nearly 333 billion emails were sent per day and it’s estimated that by 2026 the number is set to increase upto 395 billion mails per day.  According to data from Yahoofinance nearly 85% of mail which user receive are of spam category, i.e. a staggering 295 billion mails sent per day are spam. If we dissect the information more, the numbers are quite depressing. For example, according to Mike Berners-Lee, a fellow at Lancaster University who researches on carbon footprints, the footprint of an email varies dramatically, from 0.3g CO2e for a spam email to 4g CO2e for a regular email and 50g CO2e for one with a photo or hefty attachment. Multiplying these carbon footprint figures by number of emails sent per day can be eye-opening. For example, if we assume that every email has carbon foot print of 1g CO2e, and 347 billion email are sent per day then according to this nearly 347 million kg of CO2e is emitted per day and 126.6 billion kg of CO2e is emitted per year, i.e. 126.6 million tonnes per year, so if 85% of received emails are of spam category, nearly 107 million tonnes per year is the CO2e emission from spam emails. To put it in perspective, carbon emission of world per year is 34.7 billion tonnes. If we simply read the "Opt-in" and "Email Subscription" policies carefully, we can potentially reduce 107 million tonnes of carbon emission per year which is quite a lot considering the amount of effort required for click on mouse.

Storing a spam email in our inbox, we are potentially utilizing the cloud storage provided by the email platform. Cloud storage refers to the space allocated to users on server farms within data centers, which demand a substantial electric supply to operate smoothly. According to International Energy Agency, Data centers required around 260-360 terawatt hour (TWh) of electricity in 2022. And according to a research conducted by McAfee, 78% of all incoming mails are spam, around 62 trillion spam mails are sent every year, requiring use of 33 TWh of electricity and causing around 20 million tonnes of CO2e per year.  To put this in perspective, according to data from Statistics Finland's, greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 was 47.8 million tonnes of CO2e.

 

What can individual and businesses do reduce carbon footprint caused by email?

1. Not having multiple email accounts.
2. Reading the Opt-in and Email Subscription policies carefully to not get our email box flooded.
3. Unsubscribing spam email advertisements.
4. Having auto delete feature enabled in our spam mailbox.
5. Exploring alternate advertisement channels instead of email advertisements.
6. Employing email analytics tools to measure email engagement. This can help target email campaigns more effectively, reducing the number of unnecessary emails sent.

 

As individuals, we may have limited options to address the ecological impact of spam emails, but legislative bodies are better equipped to combat this issue, and governments are actively working to tackle it. For instance, the United States has enacted the CAN-SPAM Act, and the European Union has established the ePrivacy Directive (ePD). While these legislations can help in reducing the problem, but its essential to recognize that spam email is a global issue, and therefore, the solutions must also have a global reach.

International organizations such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum play a crucial role in addressing global challenges. Their involvement is crucial in coordinating efforts to combat spam emails and their associated environmental impact on a worldwide scale. By fostering collaboration and setting international standards, these organizations can help create a more sustainable and effective framework for email communication that benefits both individuals and the environment.

Is Renewable Energy a viable solution?

 

With the recent carbon net neutrality pledges, the debate of sustainability of renewable energy and its supply chain has come in light. When we talk about renewable energy, it simply means the energy which is derived from natural sources such as solar rays, wind or tidal power. However, we usually miss its supply chain discussion, i.e. the process through which the raw material is extracted to make components for renewable energy industry. Magnets for wind turbines, photovoltaic cells for solar energy, and lithium batteries are examples of these components. Rare earth metals are made up of seventeen chemical elements, including 15 lanthanides (lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, and lutetium), scandium, and yttrium.

 

Despite the name rare earth metals, these are abundantly present in earth, however the process to mining these minerals is difficult, polluting and costly. Extraction of these minerals involves land exploitation, environmental degradation and labour exploitation to say the least. Example, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) mines around 50% of world’s Cobalt supply. One of the largest mineral processors in the country is Huayou Cobalt subsidiary CDM. Huayou Cobalt gets more than 40% of its cobalt from DRC. According to Amnesty International at least  80 artisanal miners had died between 2014 and 2015 in underground mining, child labour is rampant and were paid 2 dollars per day or even less and approximately (as of 2015) 40,000 children were employed in these operations, if we factor in the long term health hazards according to CDC guidelines on  Workplace Safety & Health Topics: Cobalt, long term cobalt exposure can lead to respiratory sensitization, asthma, shortness of breath, and decreased pulmonary function. Sustained skin contact with cobalt can also lead to contact dermatitis. The provided example was specific to one country and one of the numerous rare earth minerals. This serves as a snapshot, the broader global perspective may reveal a much more alarming and disturbing situation.

 

According to India’s NTPC to produce 1 megawatt of energy from thermal power plant we require around 0.7 to 0.8 acre of land, similarly 1 megawatt of solar energy plant would require around 1.5 to 2 acre of no shadow land depending upon the technology and a wind farm would require at least 1 hectare to produce the same. So the question again arises, is the renewable energy really a viable solution?

 

According to Internal Energy Agency, in the year 2000 solar energy output was around 1.4GW which in 2020 has jumped to 760GW. A solar photovoltaic cells which is made up of crystalline silicon have a life span of about 30 years. According to International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), by 2030 panels waste is forecasted at 8 million metric tonnes, which is projected to go up to 80 million metric tonnes by 2050.

 

Do we have technology to treat the waste produced from renewable energy?

Yes, we do have technologies which involves physical to chemical processes to recycle solar panels. However, the unit economics for recycling solar panels is not attractive, according to IRENA, recycling cost of a solar panel can go up to $25 whereas dumping it on landfills cost a meagre 2 to 3 dollars, due to which nearly 10% of solar panel waste never reaches the recycling market.

 

Certainly there are many issues with renewable energy which needs to be addressed, but it is also comparatively much cleaner and green when compared to thermal energy. India’s E-Waste Management Rules 2022 and Europeans Unions Waste Electrical and Electronic equipment (WEEE) rules are few of rules and regulations which can serve as guiding principles for solar waste management and make the recycling technology cost efficient and uniform.