I won’t be replying to emails to reduce carbon output

It’s a glorious summer’s day in Joburg, 27 degrees out there. The sky is blue, the birds are singing, and I’m sitting in bed working through e-mails accrued over this holiday weekend.

Except it’s not summer. It’s Sunday, 11 August, so still technically winter.

Less than a month ago, on 21 July, our planet’s warmest average day to date was recorded (17.09˚C) beating last year’s brand new global high.

That was until the very next day, 22 July, when this new record was beaten yet again (17.16˚C).

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We’re cooking, and as I type in bed on this balmy summer’s day in winter, it turns out my never-ending e-mails may be part of the problem.

Recent research has highlighted a problem called “dark data” which is piling up in massive, energy-hungry datacentres around the world, lurking there unwanted, unseen, unused, but chewing up power.

Fact is, some 68% of the data a company uses is never accessed again, never even glanced at, forgotten completely, and yet there it still is, hanging about in “the cloud” producing acid rain.

The same is true of our individual data usage.

Every day, over 360 billion e-mails are exchanged globally.

Each standard e-mail adds another 4g of carbon, minimum; every polite but unnecessary “thank you” or brusque “noted” we send produces greenhouse gases.

When you consider that the average office worker sends maybe 40 e-mails a day, and the average person receives some 120 across their accounts, that’s a lot of data.

“Reply-all” is the biggest offender, multiplying the carbon output exponentially for each recipient. And that estimated 4g of carbon per e-mail doesn’t include greedy image-rich e-mails either.

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Nor does it account for our beloved memes, reels and photos, or our Insta posts and TikToks, which may raise a brief smile or frown but are quickly forgotten, becoming part of the dark data burning up the world.

So when I say I’m working through my e-mails, I’m actually deleting my e-mails, all the daily special offers, discount codes, and newsletters, around 70 so far, or 280g of carbon.

Next I’m going to do some unsubscribing for the sake of the world, and I won’t be replying to anyone either to reduce carbon output.

Then I’m going outside to enjoy the sunshine before summer comes to boil us alive.