What if I told you that sending an email, drinking a beer, and texting your friend all have a carbon footprint?
We might naturally tend to think about sustainability in big, obvious ways—plastic waste, food choices, travel. The stuff we don’t touch, see and might not even think about—like the footprint of digital lives, what happens every time we do laundry, or how our bank accounts might secretly be funding fossil fuel expansion.
In this post, we’re looking into:
- Why your unread emails might be dirtier than your garbage bin.
- How doing laundry might be adding microplastics to the ocean.
- What your bank is really doing with your money—and why it matters.
When everything we do has an impact, the goak isn’t to try eliminating it entirely, but deciding which trade-offs you’re ready to make.
The Digital Dumpster
You know that feeling when you open your inbox and see 7,542 unread emails staring back at you (story of my life)? Turns out, ignoring them isn’t just an organisational mess—it’s an environmental one, too.
Internet might seem weightless, but every click, email, and scroll adds up, thanks to data sttorage. And data storage requires servers, which require energy, which, unless it’s powered by renewables, means more fossil fuels being burned. Yet even here, small shifts in digital habits can make a surprising impact. And hey—if nothing else, decluttering your inbox might finally get rid of that unread email anxiety you’ve been ignoring for years.
How Bad Is It, Really?
- 🏭 Every email stored in your inbox contributes to CO₂ emissions, because servers work 24/7 to keep them accessible. A 2020 study estimated that deleting just 30 emails can save as much energy as running a lightbulb for a day.
- 🏭 Streaming video accounts for nearly 60% of all internet traffic, with one hour of HD streaming emitting 100-175g of CO₂—the same as driving up to 1 km in a car. Double it if streaming in 4K.
- 🏭 The estimated power demand of Bitcoin mining alone is higher than the entire country of Argentina.5
Low-Effort Improvements
No need to quit Instagram or start communicating via pigeon mail, there are some low-effort ways to cut down your digital footprint:
- Unsubscribe from newsletters you never read. Yes, that will require checking your spam folder as well).
- Delete old emails and empty your trash folder. And set a calendar reminder to do it every now and then.
- Stream in SD instead of HD when you don’t need 4K. Your eyes won’t notice the difference on a small screen.
- Use an eco-friendly search engine like Ecosia. It plants trees while you Google things like “do birds know they have wings?”
- Store files locally instead of on the cloud when possible. Less data floating around in endless server farms = less energy needed to keep it all running.
The Dirty Side of Laundry
Every time we wash synthetic fabrics, we are washing tiny plastic fish particles into the ocean. Synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon, and acrylic, unlike natural fibers (cotton, wool, linen), these don’t break down in water. Instead, they shed microplastics—tiny fibers so small they slip past wastewater filters.
How Bad Is It, Really?
- 🏭 Every year, household laundry releases around 500,000 tons of microplastics into the ocean—that’s the equivalent of 50 billion plastic bottles.
- 🏭 Washing a single polyester fleece jacket can release up to 250,000 microplastic fibers in one wash.
- 🏭 35% of all microplastics in the ocean come from synthetic textiles, making it one of the biggest sources of plastic pollution.
Low-Effort Improvements
Unfortunately, the only way to fully stop microplastic pollution from clothing is to stop wearing synthetic fabrics altogether. But since that’s not exactly practical, here are some ways to wash smarter, buy better:
- Use a Guppyfriend bag or a Cora Ball. They catch microplastic fibers in the wash before they reach the water system.
- Lower the wash temperature. Hot water makes synthetic fibers break down faster.
- Opt for a full load instead of small washes. Fewer washes = less friction between clothes = fewer microplastics shed.
- If buying new, choose natural fibers when you can. Organic cotton, wool, hemp, and linen don’t shed microplastics and are (usually) biodegradable.
Where is the Money?
While we are agonising over whether oat milk is better than almond milk, your bank—and probably your insurance provider and retirement fund—might be pouring billions into fossil fuels.
Finance isn’t neutral—it is actively shaping the future through investments. Banks, insurers, and pension funds move trillions of dollars every year, and many continue to bankroll polluting industries. So while switching banks might not feel as tangible as switching to LED lights, it’s one of the biggest sustainability moves you can make–where your money sits matters, even if you’re not directly investing in anything
So… How Bad Is It?
- 🏭 The world’s 60 biggest banks have collectively poured $5.5 trillion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015.
- 🏭 If the banking industry were a country, it would be the world’s fifth-largest emitter.
- 🏭 Your pension fund could be fueling the climate crisis. In the UK, the average pension finances 23 tons of CO₂ per year—that’s more than the annual carbon footprint of running nine family homes.
Low-Effort Improvements
Switching banks or pension funds might sound as fun as watching paint dry, but if you want to make a huge impact without changing your daily habits, this is one of the most powerful shifts you can make.
- Check where your bank, insurer, and pension fund stand. Websites like:
- Bank.Green: See if your bank funds fossil fuels.
- Reclaim Finance: Find out if insurers & asset managers are still backing oil & gas.
- Make My Money Matter: Check if your pension fund is aligned with net-zero goals.
- If you invest, choose funds that align with sustainability. ESG investing is growing, but some funds greenwash their impact. Look for stricter criteria, like fossil-free ETFs or impact funds with clear sustainability goals.
Final Thought: So… Now What?
If all of this feels overwhelming, you’re not alone. The reality is, you can’t win at sustainability. There’s no perfect way to exist without making an impact—but there are ways to make better choices, cut through the greenwashing nonsense, and focus on what actually matters.
Further reading
Mike Berners-Lee’s The Carbon Footprint of Everything does a fantastic job of putting numbers to everyday activities, showing how some things are worse than we assume:
- A single email = 0.3 grams of CO₂ (or up to 50g if it has a big attachment). That means your cluttered inbox is literally contributing to emissions.
- A year of smartphone use = 70 kg of CO₂. But buying a brand-new phone adds another 60 kg from production. Translation? Keeping your phone for an extra year is far better than worrying whether you’re charging it too often.
- A one-way transatlantic flight = the carbon footprint of eating a beef-heavy diet for a year. So, if you’re giving up burgers but still flying long-haul a few times a year, your footprint might not be shrinking as much as you think.
Reference list
Fair February 
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