Digital Carbon Footprint: Dark Side of Sustainable Corporates
While all the MNCs, Pvt. Corporate players are busy in showing their fake Environmental and Sustainability Report; but their day to day; minute to minute activities have more emissions of CO2.
While coordinating inside in the same building even same room to globally worldwide they communicate mostly through mails and in a through research it has been found one spam email emits approximately 0.3g of CO2 and One normal email emits 4g of CO2 and the attachment email emits 50g of CO2.
All these corporate emissions are mostly Scope 3 which is very tough to reduce, so we found set of Carbon offset activities to reduce and counterbalance the Scope 1 and 2 emissions.; ironically they are also contributing to CO2 emissions by implementing these activities from Zero to end required a lot of data analysis, installing any Renewable Energy Projects require constructions, transportation etc. indirectly emits CO2. The Corporates has made the stagnant frameworks and policies to flex their Community and Social commitment part to enhancing their investments side by side from big players.
Sustainability Reporting- Part of GHG emissions
Many organizations in the FMCG sector have engaged in various carbon offset projects that rely heavily on data analysis. Data centers are significant contributors to emissions, consuming approximately 460 TWh of electricity in 2022 due to the operation of power servers and cooling equipment. Additionally, some large corporations, such as Infosys, have implemented initiatives like distributing cookstoves to reduce carbon footprints. However, the transportation involved in distributing these cookstoves also contributes to emissions, highlighting the complexities in achieving net-zero goals.
There are some estimates that ChatGPT emits 8.4 Metric tons of CO2 in atmosphere each year where whole corporates are depending for all their activities and guidance from these Set of Artificial Intelligence. The way they are retrieving data and storing it require high source of data centers and it place huge demands on energy usage or power generation. With every set of activities from opening the file, one click, running applications, downloading applications and pictures etc. all works on reading and interpreting the data and this flick of second activity emits huge GHG.
Digitalization- Fueling the emissions
We are seeing whole corporates life is fully dependent on set of devices staring from electronic gadgets like Laptops, Chargers etc. and it consume a lot of electricity and this electricity is also coming from burning and fueling. Big MNCs interiors and infrastructure are made very flashy, eye catching where a lot of devices are used consuming a lot of electricity emitting a lot of Heat.
The companies should focus on the type of Devices they are utilizing, it should not be very old and the use should be very optimized; there should be some colling system etc., we should streamline the procedures very conveniently so that there should be no useless storage of data and requirements of data centers. Amazon Web Services, for instance, assists organizations in enhancing their cloud sustainability by elucidating the effects of their data and emphasizing constructive measures, such as eliminating unnecessary data and intelligently tiering infrequently accessed data to “colder” tiers that generally demand lower energy consumption.
Conclusion
A proper baseline should be followed for the minimal wastage of data and it should be worked or analyzed in very small time so that there won’t be useless emissions. While performing Sustainability and ESG reporting also a large set of big data is used. The other set of important activity we should see in our day-to-day life that we store few data in clouds that later it will be required and storage for these particular set of data requires a lot of space, after time being it consumes more electricity also.
So, every corporate and MNCs should also work on Decarbonization of digital data, they should reduce the use of unwanted set of data and practices to make it neutral. As we know, being in this techie world of 21st century we can’t go back to traditional approaches for just mitigating these digital emissions, in this fast-paced world where everything is digitalized for their capabilities and working scenario every organization need to be digitalized but with every pro a few cons are attached simultaneously. Every organization should inbuilt one tool or applications to analyze for every set of activities they are following or will follow in future how much emissions will be there and accordingly the employee should act.
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Prachi, an accomplished Chief-Editor at The Sustainable Brands Journal, has 15+ years of experience in Europe, the Middle East, and India, managing 90+ global sustainable brands. She’s a prolific writer in sustainability, contributing to various publications. Prachi’s unwavering passion and expertise make her a recognized authority, driving positive change and inspiring a sustainable future.
