The above before and after photos were just sent to me by a rockstar Joumor student. She took her first Tame Your Email Inbox class at the Joumor Institute on Feb 13th, 2019 and had 174,317 in her inbox. Within two weeks, she had whittled her unread emails down to…ZERO.
Many of us have turned a blind eye to the anxiety and hopeless of our unread and unending emails, but did you know your emails also have an environmental impact?
Berners-Lee estimates that a typical year of incoming mail adds 300 pounds of emissions to a person’s carbon footprint, or the equivalent of “driving 200 miles in an average car.” On a larger scale, he says that the world’s data centers in 2010 accounted for 130 million tons of CO2e, or a quarter of a percent of the world’s global total. Berners-Lee projected that the world’s data centers will produce 250 to 340 million tons CO2e by 2020. (1)
It can be overwhelming to think about all the ways we are not being kind to the earth, but in many cases, the kinder we are to ourselves, such as having fewer things we don’t need and making it easier to make decisions, we end up helping the earth as well.
You are powerful, and you have an effect on the whole world. So cheer each time you hit delete.