The online world has a real-life environmental impact - here's how to reduce it

Every time we go online to visit a website, stream a movie, catch up on social media or join a video call, we’re using energy.

Devices such as smartphones, tablets, TVs, laptops and game consoles all use varying amounts of electricity when in use – often in low amounts compared to other household appliances. But behind the scenes, a vast amount of energy is also used to keep the internet running 24/7, as thousands of worldwide data centres process, store and transmit information.

In 2024, around 5.35 billion individuals were using the internet, or 66% of the total global population. On average, each internet user spent around 6 hours 40 minutes online every day.

We are all increasingly reliant on online services, so how can we use them more energy efficiently to minimise our carbon footprint?

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What is a digital carbon footprint?

A digital carbon footprint is the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions created from your digital and online activity. 

When you visit a website, send an email, or post on social media you emit more carbon dioxide (CO2). This comes from the energy used both by your internet-connected devices and by the data centres and networks involved in storing, processing and delivering data to and from your devices. These are all powered by electricity grids using varying amounts of polluting fossil fuels – such as coal and gas – to generate energy.

In an increasingly digital world, this is a growing problem.

How to be more energy-efficient online

There are several ways to reduce your energy consumption when online or using digital services. 

Some actions - such as cutting down your screen time overall - will help lower your energy bills as well as reduce your environmental impact. Others, such as streaming fewer hi-res videos or avoiding AI-generated content, won't affect your home energy use much, but they will cut the amount of energy needed by data centres and reduce carbon emissions.

1. Use social media sparingly

According to a study conducted by Channel 4, a single Instagram post from footballer Cristiano Ronaldo to his 240 million followers consumes as much energy as ten UK households use in a year. 

Fortunately, most of us don’t have that kind of impact, but spending time on social media platforms can quickly add up.

A 2023 study compared the top 10 social networking applications and ranked them according to their environmental footprint. The GHG impact is around twice as great between the most and least impacting platforms.

Applications with a lot of multimedia content consume more energy as they exchange lots of data over the network to display this content. TikTok was found to be the most energy-hungry, consuming 22.4 mAh at launch and exchanging a lot of data as it scrolls through the news feed. This is due to the constantly running video and the many advertisements present on the application. Its GHG emissions were 0.96gCO2e/min (grammes of carbon dioxide equivalent per minute).

Text-based content, on the other hand, is much easier to load and consumes much less energy. LinkedIn consumed the lowest amount of energy (13.9 mAh of energy), and its GHG emissions were 0.47gCO2e/min.

Choose social media with fewer videos and adverts, and switch off Autoplay where possible to prevent videos playing automatically in the background or when you’re not watching.

2. Reduce streaming and video calls

According to the International Energy Agency, since the start of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, global internet traffic has grown by more than 40% due to increased video conferencing, video streaming, online gaming, and social networking. 

The carbon footprint of our video calls increases with the number of participants on the call as well as by having your camera turned on. Unless you’re giving a presentation, or otherwise need to be seen, switch off your camera to save energy.

Streaming video at the highest resolution uses more energy. If you don't need the highest quality, choose a lower default - you can always change it for movies or documentaries when you'll appreciate greater clarity.

When streaming music, switch off any accompanying video if you're just listening rather than watching.

3. Game efficiently

If you or someone in your household is a serious gamer, it could add almost £100 a year to your electricity bill to play the most energy-hungry titles.

Research from GameTop, an online gaming platform, found that the game Cyberpunk 2077 played on a PC uses an average 30kWh of power per month. 

The popular title Fortnite wasn’t far behind, using an average 24kWh a month.

A high-performance gaming rig can draw as much power as a small fridge, especially if you play for long periods of time running titles with intense graphics or CPU usage. 

To reduce energy bills, lower your graphics settings to reduce the strain on your system, which means it uses less power. Consider switching to energy-efficient modes or choosing games that are less demanding on your PC or console.

4. Manage emails

Send fewer emails. According to OVO energy, if everyone in Britain sent one less email a day, we would save 16,433 tonnes of CO2 a year. Before you click ‘send’, consider whether that crying face emoji is really worth an entire email.

Audit the emails you subscribe to. Do you read all those marketing newsletters from retailers? Unsubscribe if you no longer want them

Delete old emails when they’re no longer needed. Simply storing them takes energy, so by decluttering your inbox you’ll also reduce your carbon footprint.

Don’t add attachments - especially large ones like photos or graphics - unless you have to and check the size of your email signature. Reduce these and you will cut your digital carbon footprint.

5. Organise your cloud storage

Cloud storage is a way to store digital files and data on remote servers accessible over the internet. Instead of storing files on your local computer or a physical hard drive, you upload them to a cloud service provider, which allows you to access your files from any device with an internet connection.

If you use services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft’s OneDrive, or Apple iCloud, declutter your cloud storage by deleting data you no longer need. 

Media files such as videos and high-resolution photos take up the most space. As well as using less energy, you’ll free up space that can then be used to store new data, potentially saving you money from having to upgrade.

6. Opt out of AI when it's not needed

The introduction of artificial intelligence – specifically, generative AI - has rapidly increased data centres’ energy demand. A ChatGPT query uses around 10 times more energy than a standard search query, and most devices are now equipped with an AI assistant such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google’s Gemini. If you’d rather not use an AI assistant, or if you find Google’s AI Overview unhelpful, you can switch off or disable many of them.

Google’s AI Overview is now a permanent feature of its search function and there doesn’t appear to be a way to permanently switch it off; however, you can add “-ai” (without the quote marks) to your search to prevent the AI Overview from appearing.

If you simply don’t wish to see the AI-generated results, you can click on ‘Web’ (in the menu underneath the Google search bar) to hide the AI results – but this won’t prevent them being generated in the first place.

You could also switch to a different search engine that doesn't generate AI results, or that at least allows you to switch off the AI function.

7. Turn it down, switch it off

The simplest way to save energy at home is to turn down your devices; the resolution, brightness and sound can all be turned down to save energy.

Choose eco or energy-saving modes where available and switch devices off when they're not in use.