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How digital carbon footprint can be reduced

New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington recently held a “Data deletion 101” event during its Toitū te Ao–Sustainability Week in order to discuss personal data and wresting control of it to reduce its environmental impact and protect privacy.

According to a recent press release, the Director of the Data Science Programme in the School of Mathematics and Statistics warned that when items are deleted from the computers they are not actually deleted.

The blocks on the disks are not overwritten until they are needed even if the option ‘permanently delete this file’ is selected.

The space is simply marked as available. Thus, forensic investigators can find files even after they have been deleted out of the recycle bin.

To be really sure files are deleted, there is a need to electronically scribble over the unused part of a disk.

Digital carbon footprint

According to one estimate, each email sent can add anything from 4–50 grams to a person’s carbon footprint. Streaming a movie adds another 300g.

Data transfer as well as data storage take resources. Every gigabyte stored in the cloud requires between 3 and 7 kilowatt hours of energy.

Storing personal data in the cloud costs resources. But as energy hungry as the personal cloud storage is, it is nothing compared with the appetite for data transfer.

Streaming and high-density image content drives the huge and growing amount of carbon that is being pumped out by the ICT industry.

ICT constitutes 4%–5% of global emissions. Cryptocurrency mining is a new energy-hungry industry that relies on computers solving complex numerical problems to find new digital ‘coins’.

The largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, uses an estimated 70 terawatt hours of electricity a year worldwide, which is around half of the electricity consumption for all of New Zealand.

The Director of the Media Design Programme in the University’s School of Design then spoke of the many ways in which websites and others can track and store people’s data.

If they choose to do so, websites can adopt an interface design that helps reduce unnecessary data.

Reducing personal digital carbon footprint

Several tips for people to reduce their personal digital carbon footprint were enumerated. These are:

  1. Use Wi-Fi more if possible since the mobile network uses more energy than Wi-Fi
  2. Sign up for fibre broadband as pushing data along a fibre network uses less energy than copper lines
  3. Limit what is stored in the cloud
  4. Send links rather than attachments in emails
  5. Limit streaming. Use SD rather than HD so that only half the amount of data will be used
  6. Use a smaller or more efficient TV

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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