Digital sustainability: what is the digital carbon footprint

Digital sustainability is an opportunity and an advantage for your business. Here are some tips on how to improve it.
In this article
Digital carbon footprint: what does it mean
Digital sustainability: what does it mean?
What is the reason for the digital carbon footprint?
How to improve digital sustainability in the company
How Up2You can help you calculate your company’s digital emissions
Digital sustainability: what is digital carbon footprint
Written by
Alessandro Broglia
Published on
14.10.2024

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Digital carbon footprint: what does it mean


Did you know that even our digital activities have an impact on the environment? It's called Digital Carbon Footprint, the carbon footprint that characterizes the activities carried out on the web and, more generally, in the digital world. If, on the one hand, the digitizing of companies and businesses it helps to reduce the impact on the environment (think even if only of the reduction of paper documents), it should not be forgotten that Even new technologies produce CO₂ emissions.

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Digital sustainability: what does it mean?


How can we combine the need to make productive, bureaucratic and personal activities ever faster and more efficient with the fact that Does digitalization have an impact on CO₂ emissions? Through concrete actions that reduce Digital Carbon Footprint.

The integration of digital activities in most Italian companies and institutions (and not only) meets a specific need: make the daily lives of individuals and businesses more efficient and less polluting. In fact, digitizing activities means reducing the use of paper, minimizing the use of public and private transport to reach an office or production area, reducing harmful gas emissions from machinery and factories.

All this would seem to have a positive impact on the fight against climate change, but as a recent scientific publication states, “the digital world could be responsible for a greater share of greenhouse gas emissions than you think. And these emissions will continue to increase significantly if no action is taken.” It is appropriate, therefore, to start Calculate digital emissions and put in place some reduction strategies. 

Sostenibilità digitale e digital carbon footprint

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What is the reason for the digital carbon footprint?


Activities that include the use and training of artificial intelligence, blockchain, the collection and analysis of big data have given a turning point to the integration of digital into production activities around the world, including Italy. With their use, we have allowed companies and private citizens to make their daily work faster, more efficient, often less polluting. However, even normal use of the PC and your smartphones, emails and messaging applications, video streaming and the cloud result in the emission of greenhouse gases.

Allora What is the cause of the digital carbon footprint? This is the carbon footprint produced by these activities that, using large quantities of energy in huge data centers, release CO₂ and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are well aware that Calculate the carbon footprint business is essential to make a company more sustainable and this, at this point, also includes Digital Carbon Footprint.

The collection and processing of data in the cloud is also responsible for increasing the company's digital carbon footprint. According to the study by the EERE (Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), data centers are extremely polluting places. In fact, they consume 10 to 50 times the energy of a commercial office of the same size. However, this does not mean that using new technological means and exploiting artificial intelligence is in itself a bad thing, quite the contrary. We can learn simple techniques to improve digital sustainability of a company in a few steps.

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How to improve digital sustainability in the company


First of all, it is necessary Calculate the digital carbon footprint because it is part of the emissions caused by business activities. You may have read “measure your Carbon Footprint online” somewhere. This is because most of the tools currently available are in English. Once you understand thecarbon footprint of their digital activities, you can think of reducing them into simple strategies that can be applied immediately.

  1. Increase the lifecycle of technological devices. Proper maintenance is enough to extend the life of PCs, smartphones, tablets and other machines whose disposal affects the digital carbon footprint.
  2. Clean up large files. The storage and processing of data, as we have seen, exponentially increases the measure of the digital carbon footprint. A periodic elimination of what is no longer needed is therefore essential.
  3. Limit the sending of electronic communications. Oh yes, even the number and the 'weight' of the emails sent have an impact on the digital sustainability of a company. So fewer emails, with few key recipients and compact attachments, are a step towards improving the digital carbon footprint.

Do you want to calculate and reduce your digital carbon footprint to achieve digital sustainability? Contact us for more information.

Or click the button below and calculate your digital emissions immediately!

How Up2You can help you calculate your company’s digital emissions

We accompany your company on the path of environmental sustainability, calculate the carbon footprint and identify the most suitable actions to reduce emissions to achieve your objectives.

  • We involve your team in an initial discovery phase in which we map business activities and collect information to get to know your company more closely.
  • We support you in collecting the data necessary for calculating emissions, providing you with the tools to simplify and speed up the process.
  • With our carbon footprint calculator, we accurately analyze your Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
  • We provide you with the reports you need to communicate your commitment: from the GHG inventory to the reporting necessary to join international initiatives such as SBTi and B Corp.

Click the button below and find out how to calculate your company's emissions.

Calculate the corporate emissions
Calculate the corporate emissions