Thread: Environmental Impact of E-Mail

I wonder what the positive environmental impact of e-mail is? I'm wondering how many fewer letters are delivered, how many documents didn't need couriers, etc., and how much it has helped reduce the use of paper and fuel for transportation?

With all the hype this year on GREEN marketing showing up in email marketing examples I have covered, I got to thinking… Is there really an impact directly tied to email marketing vs other forms of marketing. I did a search in Google tonight on a variety of terms like “green email marketing”, “environmental impact of email marketing” and “energy impact studies on email vs direct mail” and found a lot of results that were inconclusive. I can understand that using email as much as we do now changes the immediate impact on natural resources from a standpoint of paper, fossil fuels to deliver mail in planes, boats and trucks, but what is the real trade off? If you think about all of the servers, computers plugged in and mobile devices using power, does it truly reduce the use of energy? I mean as I type on a laptop right now while not plugged in I could argue an immediate savings on energy, but in the end I need to charge this battery again and I am on a wifi unit that is plugged in while connected to the cloud of servers running the web and this blog software.

So did it really make a difference?

I think it does make a difference, you use less resources when you use electronic marketing like email compared with if you use letters sent to people via post. Just think of the processes that goes into making paper, ink, transporting the letter via truck and delivering the letter but car to houses.

Using email definitely saves paper costs and has less impact on the environment in terms of waste. Despite the energy costs of using the internet and maintaining servers, i think it's still worth it. Besides, if you use the power saving options for servers and equipment, and even use renewable energy, these energy costs will be significantly mitigated.