10 Tips to Improve Your Digital Sustainability

Have you ever considered how your online activity could be impacting our planet? Single-use plastic and recycling can be an easy way to visualise sustainability issues and responses, but in an increasingly digital world, our devices and online activity are having a much bigger impact than you might have realised.

Devices and Electrical Items

Tech devices require several natural, previous resources, including copper, tellurium, lithium, cobalt, manganese and tungsten (Natural History Museum). With the constant innovation and evolution of technology, the demand for these resources is increasing, and there’s also a risk that we could become reliant on sourcing these minerals from limited places and companies:

‘Our globalised marketplace keeps prices relatively low, but at a cost: a vulnerable supply chain and, in some cases, reliance on countries with histories of exploitative workplace practices and child labour.’ – Natural History Museum

Recycling these devices means we can reduce the amount of raw minerals that need to be mined, and recycling rates of electrical items are rising, with 60% of people saying they recycled their electronics in 2023 (BBC). But the rise of “Fast Tech” (such as disposable vapes, decorative lights, cables, USB sticks, cordless headphones, and mini fans) can encourage people to treat these items as disposable. 471 million “Fast Tech” items were thrown away in 2022 – these all could have been recycled.

• When you no longer need an electrical item, check whether it can be repaired, sold, donated or recycled rather than throwing it in the bin!
• Consider buying second-hand, and don’t buy a new product until your old device no longer works.

Using these devices also requires energy! One of the easiest ways to reduce your impact is to switch to renewable energy. It’s worth remembering that ‘the cleanest energy is the energy that you don’t use in the first place’ (Green Intelligence), but inevitably we do need to use energy to power our devices. Green Intelligence provide a useful guide on understanding “green” tariffs, as there can be challenges around greenwashing from energy providers.

• Unplug your devices when they’re fully charged, and switch them off fully rather than leaving them on standby mode. Although “vampire power” (the energy devices use in standby mode) is usually quite low, the number of devices we all use and leave switched on can still use a lot of energy collectively (Ovo). You should also close tabs or browsers that aren’t using to minimise the amount of energy required by devices while they’re running.

Internet Usage

While the internet is predominately an online world, it also has a real, offline, physical presence. Servers are required to power the internet which are stored in data centres – these have surged from 500,000 in 2012 up to 8 million data centres, partially driven by the explosion of AI (UNEP). These servers also require a vast amount of water for cooling, potentially up to 26 million litres of water each year (University of Oxford). Water is a precious resource – only 3% of the world’s water is freshwater, and two-thirds of this is unavailable for use. Approximately 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and 2.7 billion people find water scarce for at least one month of the year (WWF). The more pressure we put on data centres, the more water we use, so here are some tips for how you can make your online activity more sustainable:

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  Photo by Thomas Jensen on Unsplash

  Think before you ask Chat-GPT. Chat-GPT uses approximately 519 millilitres of water to write a 100-word email – that’s more than a standard bottle of water! Whilst AI is an exciting and rapidly developing tool, perhaps think again before you ask Chat-GPT to write your next email.

• Don’t store unnecessary files in cloud storage. Remember, “the cloud” does exist physically. Don’t store duplicates of the same file, and delete old files you no longer need, especially photos and videos. You could also consider using a physical external hard drive for storage if you have a lot of old files you need to keep but don’t access regularly, as these won’t use any energy when you aren’t using them. (Culture for Climate Scotland)

Emails

We send a lot of emails – in 2023, over 347 billion emails were sent every day, and this figure is expected to rise to 406 billion by 2027 (Statista). Just one email can generate between 0.03g and 26g of CO2 emissions (Mike Berners-Lee), so how can we keep those emissions down?

• As shorter emails demand less energy, you could shorten your email signature, or remove any images your signature may include. At Music Mark, we use a longer signature for initial emails, but then have a shorter version without our logo for replies.
• Swap out a file attachment for a link.
• ‘If every Brit sent one less thank you email a day, we would save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year.’ (Ovo). We all like to be polite over email, but the other person might actually thank you for creating one less notification!
• Delete emails you don’t need, and consider unsubscribing from mailing lists if you don’t read the emails.

Online Meetings

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

As we’ve discussed, online activities require energy and still have a carbon impact. But, meeting online is still less resource-intensive than meeting in-person, as it reduces the amount of travel, and an external space doesn’t have to be heated or lit (Culture for Climate Scotland).

• One way to make your online meeting more sustainable is to switch your camera off. According to a study in 2021, turning your camera off during a video conference reduces your carbon impact by up to 96%. It might feel rude in small meetings, but perhaps in the next larger meeting you attend you can stay anonymous!

Individually, these changes may seem like they won’t make a difference. But in our increasingly digital world, making our online activity and interactions with technology more sustainable can save a lot of energy collectively and help to protect our planet!

Don’t forget to visit the This Is Not A Rehearsal webpage to explore more news, training & events, resources and research to support you on your sustainability journey. If you’d like to stay up to date with training and resources related to the climate crisis within the music education sector, click here to sign up for our ‘This Is Not A Rehearsal’ monthly newsletter.