Measuring & Mitigating Carbon Emissions from Digital Content

The accelerating wave of digital content is increasing the energy demands on an already overextended planet. Every byte is energy, and energy has a carbon impact. The world has almost doubled its energy consumption since 1980, with digital content channels playing a significant role.

I have developed formulas to calculate the carbon impact of digital initiatives. These formulas can be applied to everything from websites and apps to podcasts and videos. In a pilot program, 20 conference session attendees provided anonymized data noting the impact of one small change in their corporate communications: reduced weight on a web page; fewer email blasts; reducing podcast frequency; using video only when truly relevant to the user.

The results were staggering: More than 300 tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided just from the pilot projects.

Sustainable content — content that is created sustainably to have the smallest possible emissions impact — is a powerful CSR story. Communications can take the lead on this initiative, not simply in telling the sustainability story, but as a central part of the organization's reduction of Scope 3 emissions.