Tips for sustainability

Email

Good to know

• An average e-mail without attachment equals 4 grams of CO2.
• For an email with an attachment, this is easily 50 grams of CO2!

What can you do?

Refuse:
Send fewer emails yourself: the other person will receive fewer emails and an unsent email does not need to be answered. Use Teams for your communication (calls, (group) chats or channels) or visit a colleague if possible.

Reduce:

• Send short emails: long emails and emails with attachments consume up to 12x more CO2.
• Make less use of CC.
• Use reply-all only when really necessary.
• Use BCC for mails to a large group: this avoids reply-all and associated unnecessary extra mail data.
• Be conscious of saving mails. Delete any mail that is no longer needed immediately, do not move it to an archive.
• Regularly delete emails that are no longer needed.
• Clear your deleted items folder regularly: as long as the mail is still here, it stays in the cloud!
• Keep only the last mail of a mail thread (if the mail does need to be kept).
• Look critically at mails with large attachments: are these attachments still needed? If so, save them (centrally) and delete the email (unless the content of the email really needs to be preserved).
• Schedule a recurring reminder to clean up your mailbox.
• Do not send thank you emails (alternatively, you can send a thumbs up, this consumes much less).
• Unsubscribe from newsletters you don't read.
• Share files from OneDrive instead of sending an attachment.
• If you do have to send an attachment, compress it.
• Limit the number of recipients to those who really need the e-mail.

Workplace

Good to know

• To produce a computer, 588 kg of material must be extracted.
• The production of a 5.5-inch smartphone requires 200 kg of material.

What can you do?

Reduce:

• Request a new device (laptop, phone) only if the current one does not function adequately for your work.
• Only request a device if you actually need it.
• Reduce the brightness of your monitor.
• Set energy-saving settings on your devices.
• Turn off your monitor when you leave your work/study area.
• Set Ecosia as your default search engine.

Print

Good to know

• 10-38% of what gets printed is an email.
• 16% of prints are never read and 65% could have been read on screen.
• 25% of prints are discarded within 5 minutes of printing.

What can you do?

Refuse: the best thing you can do: don't print! If you really need to print something:

Reduce:

• Print only what is really needed.
• Print double-sided.
• Print black and white.

Reuse: Use blank spaces/back of prints for notes.

Data storage

Good to know.

• 65% of stored data is no longer used.
• 70% of data has lost its value after one hour.
• 80% of technical equipment emissions are in production & transportation.

What can you do?

Reduce:

• Reduce your data storage. Everything you store ends up being stored in a data center, which costs energy. Therefore, be aware of what you are storing.
• Keep only the data that is still of value.
• Periodically check your own and your team's documentation and delete what no longer has value.
• Avoid duplicate storage (for example, move files instead of copying them).

E-waste

Good to know

• Worldwide, 400 million smartphones and 35 million computers are thrown away each year.
• 53.5 million tons of e-waste per year.
• E-waste is growing 3x faster than plastic waste.
• Only 18% is recycled.

What can you do?

Reduce: use equipment as long as possible.

Reuse:

• Ask for used equipment / accept used equipment.
• Turn in your VU equipment to VU so it can be reused or recycled.

AI

Good to Know.

• The average training of an AI model emits as much CO₂ as 62.6 cars per year.
• Recent research shows that ChatGPT consumes 500 ml of water for every 20 to 50 questions and answers. To reuse the water, it must be filtered considerably.
• Generating an image with Generative AI models, such as OpenAI's DALL-E 3, consumes as much energy as fully charging your phone.
• NVIDIA is expected to ship 1.5 million AI servers starting in 2027. These servers consume at least 85.4 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year.

What can you do?

Reduce: be aware of the impact of AI and use AI only when it truly adds value.