Reduce your digital footprint

The internet offers endless possibilities. We can access all kinds of information, work from anywhere and quickly connect with people no matter where we are. The possibilities are endless, but what most are not aware of is the impact on the environment. Compete is committed to sustainability. Therefore, with this blog, we want to make you aware of your digital footprint and how you can easily reduce it.

Digital waste

The fact that working digitally and CO2 emissions go hand in hand is far from common knowledge. For instance, the internet produces some 900 million tonnes of CO2 every year (source: Digital Cleanup Day). Sustainability is mostly associated with business operations. For instance, to make your business operations more sustainable, you probably think of reusable coffee cups, managing facilities, and ultimately the hardware or laptops that contribute to the ‘waste pile’. It certainly does, but you are probably not quick to make the link with digitisation, which also contributes to CO2 emissions. Just by storing mails and files.

And therein lies immediately the solution. In our digital working environment, there is a lot of digital ‘waste’. Think unimportant emails, sent items, a mailbox bin that has not been emptied. This requires a huge amount of storage space on the server or in the cloud. Multiple, older versions of a document also cause unnecessary occupation of digital space.

The benefits of a Digital Cleanup

Therefore, it is a good idea to hold a Digital Cleanup regularly and be more conscious about how you use digital options. Empty the deleted items folder of your mailbox often and the recycle bin on your PC or laptop. This will help you reduce your digital footprint. This not only reduces CO2 emissions, but offers even more benefits.

1. Cost savings

Data storage means more use of storage and therefore more costs. We are regularly asked if we can expand servers, but in many cases this is not necessary at all if you clean up your files regularly. You can also save costs because errors can be detected faster. After all, with less storage, you need to search through fewer documents.

2. Increase business efficiency

If data is not up to date, your SME may not have an up-to-date picture of the current situation, which can lead to wrong decisions that tangle up work processes. By ensuring clean, organised and accurate data, you can make better business decisions and operate more efficiently.

3. Less vulnerable to cybercrime

The more data is stored, the more can be ‘stolen’. Cyber security is perhaps the most important reason to regularly sweep a digital broom through IT systems. As many as one in five business owners fall victim to cybercriminals who target the digital jumble of data. Read here what you can do more against cyber criminality.

Wondering how big your digital footprint is? The website E-missions.co.uk features several impact calculators that map the ecological impact of ten digital pursuits (from emailing to streaming videos). For example: sending ten e-mails a day (a quarter of which contain attachments) is equivalent to an annual energy consumption of 38.4 kilowatt hours and it is associated with 12.6 kilos of CO₂ emissions a year. And those who store 200 gigabytes in the cloud consume 59.2 kilowatt hours per year and emit 19.4 kilos of CO₂.

In the coming weeks, we will tell you more about how to reduce your SME’s digital footprint. Keep an eye on our website and LinkedIn.