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The Conversation
The Conversation
Science
Luciano Rodrigues Viana, Doctorant en sciences de l'environnement, Département des sciences fondamentales, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)

Can sending fewer emails or emptying your inbox really help fight climate change?

Electricity Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada NSERC
Using electricity to manually delete emails can actually have a greater carbon impact than simply storing them. (Unsplash)

The massive carbon footprint left behind by emails has been widely discussed by the media, but most of the time these discussions are exaggerated.

According to Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the French minister of energy transition, reducing the number of emails that are sent and deleting them would reduce the individual carbon footprint. News stories have voiced these ideas as well.

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