How to Reduce Your Digital Carbon Footprint

Our everyday online habits – from video calls to social media and streaming – have a real environmental cost. In fact, the digital sector (data centers, networks and devices) emits on the order of 1.0–1.7 gigatonnes of CO₂-equivalent per year, roughly 2–3% of global greenhouse gases. This share may sound small, but it rivals the annual emissions of large countries. For example, Istrate et al. (2024) estimate that the average internet user’s annual digital activities (web browsing, social media, video/music streaming, video conferencing) emit about 229 kg CO₂e per year – roughly 3–4% of a typical personal carbon footprint. On a global level, Freitag et al. (2021) note that ICT (information & communication technology) makes up about 2.1–3.9% of worldwide emissions. In short, our phones, laptops, and cloud services have “hidden” climate footprints that add up.

Several factors drive this impact. Data centers and network infrastructure consume roughly 2–3% of the world’s electricity, and even home internet routers and wireless signals use power continuously. Within your own digital footprint, video streaming is especially heavy: life-cycle analysis shows that streaming video accounts for about 40–50% of a person’s online carbon impact. By contrast, web browsing, social media, music streaming and video calls each contribute only on the order of 10–18% apiece. Video is so costly partly because it transfers large amounts of data and often uses high-energy devices (big-screen TVs and computers). In fact, even the energy to manufacture and ship our devices matters: roughly one-third of the climate impact of digital use comes from producing electronics (chips, screens, batteries). This means that using any gadget responsibly – from a laptop to a smart speaker – has ripple effects on resource use and emissions.

Importantly, the carbon footprint of our online life depends on how our electricity is generated. Using mostly renewables makes a big difference. For instance, Istrate et al. (2024) calculate that an average user in hydropower-rich Norway would have a digital footprint around 146 kg CO₂e/yr, whereas in coal-heavy India the same usage could emit about 327 kg CO₂e/yr. In other words, switching your devices and cloud services onto cleaner power can nearly halve your digital emissions. Decarbonizing the power grid is widely seen as the key long-term fix, but there are many practical steps we can take today to shrink our footprint.

Example of a data centre. One of the digital's biggest carbon emitters

Tips for Individuals and Households

• Manage device power: Turn off or unplug devices when not in use. Enable sleep or low‑power mode on your computer, TV, and router. (For example, ENERGY STAR standards give computers a 70% power savings in sleep mode) Unplugging chargers and external drives avoids “phantom” energy use. Power management can cut home electronics’ energy use by tens of percent.

  
  

• Stream wisely: When watching videos or listening to music, choose lower resolutions if possible. Streaming HD video (or keeping many apps and video windows open) uses far more bandwidth and energy than standard definition or audio-only modes. Since video streaming is the single largest slice of digital emissions (≈40–52%), reducing your streaming quality can significantly lower your footprint. Only keep camera on in video calls when needed – switch to audio-only if video isn’t essential, or turn off background videos in apps.

  
  

• Clean up digital clutter: Delete old files, emails, and apps you don’t use. Unneeded data still lives on servers and in the cloud, burning energy for storage and backups. For example, clearing out gigabytes of idle cloud storage or photo backups can reduce data-center load. Similarly, unsubscribe from mailing lists to cut the number of emails and storage tied up in long threads. Every saved gigabyte has a tiny but real carbon cost.

  
  

• Extend gadget lifetimes: Use devices as long as you can before replacing them. Repair or upgrade old phones and laptops instead of buying new ones. A lifecycle study shows that doubling the lifespan of electronics greatly cuts the materials and emissions tied to them. For instance, Istrate et al. found that simply doubling device lifetimes could shrink resource use (mineral/metal demand) roughly in half. In practice, that means avoid toss­ing perfectly good gadgets and consider refurbished or second‑hand devices. Selling, donating or recycling old hardware also keeps resources in use.

  
  

• Use energy‑efficient gear: When buying new devices, look for energy-star ratings or the most efficient models. Modern laptops and smartphones can use far less power than older ones. Simple settings help too: lower your screen brightness and backlight timers, and close unused apps. In many computers, enabling built‑in power-saving features can reduce electricity use by 50–70% (versus leaving them fully on). While specific savings vary, studies consistently show that power management (sleep mode, auto-off) greatly reduces the idle energy waste of home electronics.

  
  

• Choose green power: If available, plug your home and devices into renewable electricity. Many energy suppliers allow you to select a green energy mix. Since the carbon intensity of electricity was shown to swing your digital footprint by up to a factor of two, even partial shifts to wind/solar power can cut emissions substantially. For households with solar panels, try charging laptops and phones during peak sun.

Tips for Students

• Mind digital studying: Turn off computers and tablets when not actively using them. Use power-saving modes between tasks. If studying at night, shut down screens or put devices to sleep rather than leaving them idle.

• Optimize online learning: In remote lectures or study groups, use audio-only or turn off your video camera when possible – streaming live video (both sending and receiving) uses much more energy than audio. Download lecture slides or videos for offline viewing, so you’re not streaming the same content repeatedly.

• Cut back on printing: Wherever possible, annotate PDFs or e-textbooks digitally instead of printing out pages. If printing is needed, print double-sided in draft mode to save paper. (Remember: paper production and printers also have environmental costs, so digital-first is often greener.)

• Reuse and recycle devices: Student budgets are tight, so extend gadgets longer by using them hard (apps, books, notes) and passing old ones on. Many universities run electronics recycling or take-back programs – use these so devices are properly reused or recycled rather than trashed.

Tips for Small Businesses

• Green hosting and IT: Choose web hosts and cloud providers that run on renewable energy or have clear efficiency programs. For example, some companies now advertise “carbon-neutral” data centers. Optimizing your website (compression, caching) also reduces data transfer and server load.

  
  

• Cloud and server management: Regularly clean up unused cloud instances, files, and databases. Idle cloud servers burn power even if not actively used. Consolidating services (use one server instead of many smaller ones) and using virtualization can improve efficiency.

  
  

• Energy-saving policies: Encourage employees to shut down office computers at day’s end and enable power management. Use smart power strips to cut standby power in communal devices (printers, scanners, chargers) overnight. Even printers can be put into sleep mode to trim energy waste.

  
  

• Digital communication: Reduce unnecessary email attachments (share links instead of sending documents). Batch emails to avoid constant background syncing. These small steps lower server and network loads. Also, consider keeping shared files on a network drive or internal cloud (hosted on a green server) instead of everyone storing duplicates locally or emailing large files.

  
  

• Remote work trade-offs: While remote work cuts commute emissions, it shifts some energy use to homes. Help employees work efficiently at home by suggesting they power down devices when not in video meetings, and use local Ethernet instead of WiFi if it allows devices to sleep.

Tips for Larger Organizations

• Adopt a sustainable IT strategy: Integrate your digital operations into your carbon accounting. Set targets to reduce IT emissions (often part of “Scope 3” or supply-chain emissions). Decarbonize data centers: If you run corporate servers or telecoms, invest in renewable power or carbon offsets for those facilities. Data centers today typically use mostly grid power, so even modest renewable contracts can cut their footprint.

  
  

• Optimize data center efficiency: Use virtualization and server consolidation to run fewer physical machines. Modern cooling and airflow management can save huge energy (warm-aisle/cold-aisle containment, economizers). Rack servers tightly and invest in high-efficiency hardware. Even simple changes (like setting higher server inlet temperatures) can reduce cooling energy by 20–30%.

  
  

• Sustainable procurement: When buying IT hardware, prioritize long-life, repairable models. Establish “extended producer responsibility” policies: require suppliers to recycle or take back old equipment. For example, the ICT sector is moving toward leasing equipment rather than one-time sales, which encourages longer use.

  
  

• Green software and practices: Encourage developers to write efficient code (faster code can mean less server CPU time). Use power management in office software (e.g. set devices to sleep after inactivity). Minimize streaming in internal communications – share recorded videos in SD quality when HD isn’t needed.

  
  

• Employee awareness: Promote simple habits: unplug projectors and TVs, turn off lights (as part of general energy programs), use stairs instead of elevators (where appropriate), etc. Even though these aren’t “digital” per se, they cultivate a culture of conservation that extends to IT use.

Conclusion

In an increasingly digital world, every bit of data and every streaming hour adds up to carbon emissions. The good news is that individual and collective choices matter. Turning off devices, cutting unnecessary streaming, and using electronics longer can incrementally shrink your digital footprint today. More broadly, shifting to renewables and designing energy-smart systems can dramatically reduce the sector’s impact.

Key takeaways: The most impactful actions are decarbonizing energy and extending device lifespans. Even so, user habits play a role: watch videos consciously, power down idle hardware, clean up digital clutter, and choose green providers wherever possible. By adopting these habits at home, school, or work – and by advocating for clean power – we can all help curb the growing digital carbon tide.

Call to action: Take a moment today to power off that idle computer, cut video resolution on your next online meeting, or pledge to keep your current phone one year longer. Small changes, multiplied across millions of us, will add up to a far smaller carbon footprint for our digital lives.

References:

• Freitag, C., Berners-Lee, M., Widdicks, K., Knowles, B., Blair, G. S., & Friday, A. (2021). The real climate and transformative impact of ICT: A critique of estimates, trends, and regulations. Patterns, 2(9), 100340.

• Istrate, R., Tulus, V., Grass, R. N., Vanbever, L., Stark, W. J., & Guillén-Gosálbez, G. (2024). The environmental sustainability of digital content consumption. Nature Communications, 15, 3724.

• Shehabi, A., Walker, B., & Masanet, E. (2014). Energy and greenhouse-gas implications of internet video streaming in the United States. Environmental Research Letters, 9(5), 054007.