Practical steps you can take to minimise your digital footprint

Bristol Green Capital Partnership’s Climate Action Programme supports organisations to reduce their carbon emissions, as part of Bristol’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

They’ve recently launched a new resource all about reducing the impact of your workplace digital activities on the environment.

With the pandemic bringing a move to more remote working, many hailed this as fantastic for the reduction of carbon emissions. Whilst it is true that business travel emissions have decreased, we mustn’t forget about the impact of digital products and services on the environment.

Digital emissions are often misunderstood and overlooked. They can seem out of sight and difficult to quantify but with electronic waste and data usage on the rise, the reality is very scary.

Thankfully, Bristol Green Capital Partnership have pulled together practical steps that you can take to minimise your digital footprint from their recent Climate Action Lunch with Gerry McGovern, Author of World Wide Waste.

Top tips include:

• Understand the value in your electronic devices; buy to last, repair and care for your devices.
• Organise the intranet/shared folders so people can find what they’re looking for and send less emails/attachments.
• Use video to greet at your online meetings then go to audio which creates 90% less pollution. Consider a text or phonecall instead.
• Delete old emails, accounts, and files.

You can find all the tips, advice and links for further reading in this resource.

You can also access the event recording and the full suite of Climate Action Programme resources on the Bristol Green Capital Partnership website.