Uncovering the Carbon Footprint of Internet

Welcome back to my blog!

It’s easy to oversee the environmental impacts of our Internet activities as we are not able to physically sense or touch “the Internet”. So, before we can proceed any further, we will first have to understand how the usage of the Internet even results in carbon emissions. Allow me to illustrate this with the example of a Google search. We have to remember that the internet is supported by physical networks which process whatever we do from our devices. So, whenever we click the “search” button on the Google search bar, our input is sent to a Google server in one of it’s many data centres. These servers require electricity to power and the electricity that they are currently running on comes from sources like coal that produces high carbon footprints, essentially accounting for the carbon footprints of the Internet.

As you can see in the image above, the computers in data centres are packed very densely. Handling so much data means that these computers generate large amounts of heat. Air conditioning has thus also become a major part of the energyย  consumption in data centres, driving up the environmental impacts of our Internet usage.

Each Google search generates about 7g of carbon, and Google handles about 40,000 searches every second, which makes that about 2.8 million grams of carbon, in just one second. A 1MB email generates 20g of CO2, so just think about how much spam mails we receive all the time. Overall, at the scale that we are using the Internet, 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is generated each year, accounting for 2% of global carbon emissions.

Now that we understand the impacts of the Internet on the environment, where do we go from here? Obviously we can’t just stop using the Internet, but there are a few surprisingly simple things we can start with. Constantly annoyed by spam emails? Now is the time to finally unsubscribe from unwanted newsletters and know that while you’re at it, you’re also playing your part to reduce the Internet’s carbon footprint. Additionally, you can reduce the number of searches you conduct by directly entering website urls instead of Googling them. This reduces the need for the search to go through Google servers, producing unnecessary emissions. Have frequently used websites? Save yourself some time and effort by adding them to your Favourites so you don’t have to type them out all the time, which also removes the temptation of Googling for these website names every time you need them.

It is, however, worth mentioning that companies like Google actually are taking actions to reduce their company’s carbon footprint. Internet search engines also don’t necessary only have negative impacts on the environment. In my future blogposts, I will be touching on these topics, so stay tuned for more!

Sze Jie

References:

https://www.energuide.be/en/questions-answers/do-i-emit-co2-when-i-surf-the-internet/69/

7 Replies to “Uncovering the Carbon Footprint of Internet”

  1. Sze Jie – Oh wow, this is really an interesting topic! And it has given me a lot of guilt for not cleaning up my inbox…
    As I was reading your post, this question popped into my head: What is the environmental impact of private/government servers on the environment? After all, in our government, most of their computers are connected via private networks. How do you think this would be different from the figures above?
    -Dennis

  2. Oh Wow!
    I knew about internet servers requiring tons of electricity to function but I never thought about the carbon footprint behind individual emails sent and the searches we perform on Google. With this in mind, what is your opinion on search engines that claim to be carbon neutral or carbon negative such as Ecosia then? Should we switch towards these search engines?

    Additionally, with most of our data now being on cloud servers such as iCloud and Google Drive, should we reconsider our usage of these subscriptions? I look forward to your future posts!

    Willis

  3. Hi Sze Jie!

    Your topic is pretty unexpected because I was not conscious of the high carbon footprint the Internet produces. I feel that many people would share the same sentiment as well because there seems to be a lack of efforts to raise awareness regarding this issue, for instance in Singapore. Perhaps it’ll be good to start educating people to be more conscious of their usage of the Internet, though I wonder how effective it would be in changing their daily online habits. On the issue of spam emails, I see that many of my peers have thousands of notifications on their email apps (that’s actually one of my pet peeves lol). Given how easy it is to ignore the notifications and leave them to accumulate, it’ll be a challenge to get people to start bothering to filter through the many emails and unsubscribe from the irrelevant ones.

    On another note, our government has been full-on embracing the digital revolution and thus the plan to transform Singapore into a Smart Nation. Efforts include shifting to cashless payment systems, which probably requires the Internet. So maybe the transition to a Smart Nation would increase our overall carbon emissions, which is really worrying! I find that this Smart Nation plan has been portrayed in a really positive light by our government since it means that we’re becoming a more advanced and sophisticated nation, but there may actually be detrimental impacts on the environment… which few people are aware of! Sigh.

    Vera

  4. Hi Sze Jie! It’s Jie Ying here!
    I am really intrigued by your post as I’ve never thought about how much carbon footprint we are creating while surfing on the internet. ๐Ÿ™‚ I also thought I would like to mention Ecosia, a search engine that plants trees based on the number of users!
    In this case, afforestation is going to help absorb the carbon emissions we are producing while surfing the internet. I thought this platform is a good initiative and would like to hear your thoughts about this ๐Ÿ˜€ Is it possible for the household search engines like Google convert their operations into something like Ecosia?
    Have a nice day ๐Ÿ˜€

  5. Hey Sze Jie! Thank you for such an interesting post! I completely overlooked my carbon footprint online. This got me thinking, though, many businesses are switching to online means for advertisements and marketing, sending email notifications as opposed to traditional paper flyers or letters in order to reduce their paper consumption. Considering the carbon emissions involved in these emails that we often ignore, which way do you think is better for the environment?

    – Steffi

    1. Personally, I feel like email notifications are still better than traditional flyers. The domestic recycling rate in Singapore is only 22% as of 2018. This means that the flyers which are distributed often do not get recycled. Furthermore, there is a tendency of people throwing flyers straight into the trash without even giving them a good look. This will add up to a lot of unnecessary trash being generated. On the other hand, for email notifications, although each of them carry a carbon footprint, these carbon footprints can possibly be reduced when companies choose to use renewable energy to operate their systems. In fact, this is already the case for major companies like Google, which the widely used Gmail is under.

  6. Hi Sze Jie,

    So, I tried Ecosia recently, and although I loved the ethic behind it, I wasn’t super impressed with the performance. Currently, the Green Party of Canada’s election platform (unveiled a couple of days ago) mentions an initiative to taxing large corporations such as Facebook and Google that pay no taxes in Canada (just making them pay regular taxes, not a carbon tax).

    I highly doubt the party stands a chance of winning the election, but your post makes me ask, what do you think about exacting carbon taxes from these 2 companies. For example, could you imagine a scenario where such initiatives could divert funds to help alternative search engines (e.g., Ecosia) improve their offering ?

    Hope my Q makes sense to you – let me know if it doesn’t.

    Thanks,

    jc

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