More than half of the digital data firms generate is collected, processed and stored for single-use purposes. Often, it is not reused. This could be a bunch of nearly identical images you have stored on Google Photos or iCloud, an outdated business spreadsheet that will never be used again, or data from an internet sensor that serves no purpose.
This “dark data” is anchored by the energy required for the real world. Data that is stored and never reused also takes up space on servers – usually large banks of computers in warehouses. Those computers and those warehouses all use a lot of electricity.
This is a significant energy cost that is hidden in most organizations. Maintaining effective organizational memory is a challenge, but at what cost to the environment? Many organizations are trying to reduce their carbon footprint while moving towards net zero. Guidance generally focuses on reducing traditional sources of carbon production, such as carbon offsetting by third parties (for example, planting trees to offset emissions from using gasoline).
Digital Carbon Footprint
While most climate change activists focus on limiting emissions from the automotive, aviation and energy industries, the processing of digital data is comparable to these sectors and is still growing. In 2020, digitization accounted for 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The production of digital data is growing rapidly – the world is expected to generate 97 zettabytes (ie: 97 trillion gigabytes) of data this year. By 2025, it could nearly double to 181 zettabytes. It is surprising that policy attention has not been given to reducing the digital carbon footprint of organizations.
When we talk to people about our work, we find that they often assume that digital data, and indeed the process of digitization, is carbon neutral. But it doesn’t have to—we control its carbon footprint, for better or worse. We have come up with the idea of ”Digital Decarbonization” to reduce this footprint.
By this, we don’t mean using phones, computers, sensors and other digital technologies to reduce an organization’s carbon footprint. Instead, we’re referring to reducing the carbon footprint of digital data. It is important to recognize that digitization is not an environmental issue, but rather has a larger environmental impact on how we use digital processes in the everyday workplace.
To illustrate the severity of the dark data situation, data centers (responsible for 2.5 percent of all human-induced carbon dioxide) have a larger carbon footprint than the aviation industry (2.1 percent). To put this into context, we’ve created a tool that can help calculate the carbon cost of data for an organization.
Using our calculations, a typical data-driven business such as insurance, retail or banking with 100 employees can generate 2,983 gigabytes of dark data per day. If they kept that data for a year, that data would have the carbon footprint of flying from London to New York six times.
Currently, companies generate 1,300,000,000 gigabytes of dark data a day – that’s 3,023,255 flights from London to New York.
The rapid growth of dark data raises significant questions about the efficiency of current digital practices. In a recent study published in the Journal of Business Strategy, we identified ways to help organizations reuse digital data and highlighted ways organizations can follow when collecting, processing and storing new digital data. We hope this can reduce dark data production and contribute to the digital decarbonization movement, which we must all engage in if net zero is to be realized.
You can start by deciding which photos and videos you no longer need. Every file stored on Apple iCloud or Google Photos adds to your digital carbon footprint.
