Digital Carbon Footprint

Cover photo credit: This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 

Our online activities leave a trail of Carbon footprints that most of us are not aware of. Unlike other forms of Carbon emissions, the energy consumed for data transfer, processing and storage is not directly visible to us, making it a very silent contributor to global warming. Carbon footprint notwithstanding, advent of AI has introduced another parameter that has a negative impact to the environment: Fresh water consumption to cool the AI servers. Whether we like it or not, our life is now completely intertwined with the digital world, including AI. In this scenario, the best we could all do is to be mindful about energy and fresh water consumption and use the digital and AI technologies where it is essential.

Key Data Points

A single click of a "like" button on social media is estimated to generate between 0.2 to 0.4 grams of CO_2e. This tiny amount accounts for the energy required by your device, data transmission over cellular/Wi-Fi networks, and the processing power of the data centers routing your action. 

The Breakdown of a Like

Digital carbon footprints are calculated by the energy required to complete the chain of a single online action.

• User Device: The smartphone or computer used to render the screen and process your tap.

• Network Infrastructure: The energy used by mobile towers, routers, and internet service providers to send your "like" to its destination.

• Data Centers: The servers that receive, process, and permanently store your interaction. 

How it Compares

While 0.2 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent is incredibly small, the impact compounds heavily when you consider that billions of clicks happen daily. For context, here is how a single "like" compares to other common everyday actions: 

• Sending an email (without attachment) ~0.3g

• Liking/Tweeting a post ~0.2g - 0.4g

• Reading an email (on phone) ~0.2g

• Google Search query ~0.2g

• Streaming one hour of HD video ~36g

• Sending a regular email with attachments ~50g

How to reduce your Digital Carbon Footprint

Here are certain steps we could all take to reduce this Carbon footprint.

Leaner Emails boxes

Objective: Reduce email storage and traffic 

• Delete unwanted emails regularly.

• Unsubscribe from unsolicited emails that you don’t read

• Report and block spam emails.

• Think before you send/reply all. Not everyone needs to be copied always.

Declutter the Cloud storage

Objective: To reduce the load on the servers used for this storage that need energy for running and cooling.

• Be sensitive about what you store in the cloud and for how long

• Regularly cleanup these cloud storage spaces like Google photos, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.

Reduce Social Media activity

Objective: To draw a line between essential and excess activity

• Think before you post something. These apps are meant to encourage more posting and more reactions. We should know when to draw a line between necessary and excessive posting and reaction.

• Even a simple act of pressing a LIKE button requires a message to be sent to a server somewhere to process that.

• Clean up old pictures and videos from FB, Instagram, YouTube, etc. that nobody is going to look at it again.

Responsible use of AI

Objective: Use AI when it is absolutely essential

• Compared to normal computer processing, AI uses lot more computing resources. These resources heat up very fast due to the intensity of the processing. It requires large quantities of fresh water to cool these servers.

• Think before relying on AI for tasks that we could do manually or with normal computing.

Summary

Like any sustainability measure, mindfulness is the key word when it comes to reducing Digital Carbon Footprint as well. While our daily life (both personal and business) is heavily dependent on information technology, including AI, let's be conscious about the impact of using the technology on climate change and be mindful about using it only when and where it is essential.