The impact of emails on the environment

E-mails harm the environment and worsen the state of the environment, European analysts are sure. The UK authorities have proposed to reduce the number of e-mails sent, the BBC reports.

Experts are sure that if every resident of the country sent one less e-mail, it could collectively prevent emissions from 16 to 18 tons of carbon per year.

Researchers suggest that even unsent messages are harmful to the environment, as regular typing leads to a loss of electricity. When sending emails, data centers consume so much electricity that it leads to the death of the planet, experts say.

According to the president of the investment management company Freedom Group, Narek Sirakanyan, by 2030 the total emissions in Russia will vary at the level of 2,381,000,000 tons or 2,381,000,000,000 kg. The expert obtained these figures by calculating the share of economically active population in the country in the 3rd quarter of 2020 – 75.2 million people. Over the past ten years, this indicator has hardly changed – -0.01%.

In total, provided that there are 4 grams of CO2 in 1 letter, and each person from the economically active population receives 50 letters a day, then: 75 200 000 * 0,004 * 50 * 365 = 5 489 600 000 kg. per year. The total volume of emissions will be: 5,489,600,000 kg /2 381 000 000 000 kg = 0.23%

He concluded that e-mail gives a very small amount of emissions, unlike other activities, for example, forestry or land use.

IT specialists also agreed with the arguments of the specialist. According to them, in the total volume of traffic that the whole planet exchanges daily, e-mail is far from the first place. This type of communication has already been replaced by messengers and various communication applications.

Today there are more significant services that consume much more electricity than emails. For example, various video hosting sites. One video in 4K resolution is comparable in volume to 1 million messages.