Your online activity including sending and receiving emails has a carbon footprint. 

Every email you send can emit up to 26g of CO₂. To put that into context, if every UK adult sent just one less ‘thank you’ email, that would save the equivalent of 81,152 flights to Madrid. That's according to research.

With over 300 billion emails sent per day, email’s carbon footprint is worse than you think. 

There is no doubt that email is here to stay, especially email is the oldest and most tried and tested form of digital marketing.

But what does need to change is our approach to email, to make it greener, leaner and better for the planet.

Whether you send personal emails or use email to market your business—learn from these 11 top tips to cut your email carbon footprint today. 

Switch To A Sustainable Email Marketing Platform

If you do any kind of email marketing as a business, then this first tip is for you. 

There are so many email platforms out there. However, only one platform has been created specifically to reduce the carbon emissions of sending emails.

By powering our systems on renewable energy sources and planting trees on behalf of our users, EcoSend is on a mission to clean up the email marketing space.

EcoSend plans start at just £29 per month making our email platform affordable as well as sustainable.

Beyond offering sustainable email marketing, EcoSend gives you all the tools and features you need to succeed at email. This means you don’t have to compromise just for being greener! 

Another benefit of EcoSend includes our human and super personalised customer service (no chatbots here!). So if you’re fed up with feeling like just another number with other email tools, EcoSend could improve your customer experience while also lowering your carbon emissions.

Many businesses have already made the switch to EcoSend. Is today the day your business joins us? 

Scrub Your Email List

Having a large email list seems great in theory. But over time, your open rates and overall engagement will likely drop. 

All the while, you are paying to send that email to someone who has stopped opening your campaigns. You're also generating excess carbon emissions in the process. 

If someone hasn’t opened a single email of yours in the last 6 months, and they don’t respond to a re-engagement email it’s time to let them go. By cleaning your list, you will send fewer emails, and the ones you do send can benefit from higher levels of engagement. This makes email scrubbing a win-win! 

In contrast, bulk sending to everyone, including those who don’t open your emails can be perceived as spam. That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on your list, and most importantly keep it clean. 

Learn more: Email Scrubbing: Get A Squeaky Clean Email List With These 5 Easy Steps

Unsubscribe From Irrelevant Content

If you get sent a lot of emails every day, we’d put a wager on those emails feeling overwhelming to even scroll through, let alone open and engage with.

Whether you get sent a lot of spam, or if lists you’ve signed up to bombard you with too many emails, it’s time to get rid. 

By unsubscribing from irrelevant content and blocking spam addresses, your inbox will be easier to digest. Even better, you’ll also prevent potentially thousands of emails from being sent to you, each with its own carbon footprint. 

Don’t just unsubscribe from work emails, but also go through your personal accounts too. The fewer emails you can be sent per day, the better especially if they aren’t genuine or important. 

Clear Out Your Inbox Regularly

We might have just covered getting rid of emails that are still being sent to you. But what about old emails from years ago that are gathering dust in your inbox?

Carbon is also generated to store existing email content, meaning your old emails also have a carbon footprint. Yep…even the ones you haven’t opened in years. 

Don’t just take our word for it. Forbes wrote an aptly named article called ‘How Eco-Friendly Is It To Delete Your Emails?’, where they state that storing just 3,500 5MB emails produces the CO₂ equivalent of driving a car a kilometre.

Now think about the thousands of emails we all have stored in every email account we’ve ever owned. Multiply this by the 4 billion people who have an email account. That soon turns into many, many kilometres, and ultimately more CO₂ being created by our emails.

So don’t delay in deleting old email accounts you no longer use, and clearing out emails that you no longer need. 

Segment Rather Than Send To All

One of the biggest mistakes email marketers make is sending the same email to everyone. 

Also known as high volume sending, a lack of campaign segmentation leads to lower engagement, especially if that’s your go-to strategy. 

Beyond lower open and click-through rates, email blasts involving sending one email to a large list is also bad for the planet.

The size of the list as well as the weight of the email will determine the amount of CO₂ generated. In particular, large lists combined with heavy templates (i.e. large image or video files included) are the most wasteful type.

Segmenting not only improves results for email marketers, but it also reduces the carbon footprint of the business. 

P.S. Are you finding this post useful? Sign up to the EcoSend Weekly and we’ll send more free content to you like this every week! 

Charge & Power Devices On Green Energy Sources

The act of reading, forwarding, sending or even deleting emails requires energy from your device. 

Powering or charging your laptops, desktop computers, phones and tablets through renewable energy sources is yet another way to lower the carbon footprint of your emails. Best of all, this tip applies to absolutely anyone with an email account, even if you don't use email for commercial purposes.

Green energy involves the likes of solar or wind power. If you’re based in the UK, check out our post A Full List Of Green Energy Suppliers In The UK for clean energy companies that you can switch your home or office energy to. 

You can also install solar panels to generate your renewable energy rather than relying on electricity or gas, particularly any type of energy that is coal powered. 

Skip Attachments & Large Files To Reduce Email Weight

A major determining factor of how much CO₂ an email produces is down to its weight. In other words, the size of the email will increase if images, videos or attachments are added. 

When you use the EcoSend template builder you can see the size of any images as you upload them. If they are large files, we recommend resizing them or reducing the image quality to slim the file size down.

For attachments, you should review the file size before you send the email. If you really must send attachments through email, then compress the files where possible. 

Also remember that the more recipients an email has or the larger the email thread, the greater the email weight will be. By looking to be as economical as possible, you can reduce wasteful CO₂ email emissions. 

Use Lightweight Email Templates

When was the last time you checked the size of your email template before you sent it?

Email templates, particularly those that are graphics-heavy will inevitably require more energy to send and store. 

We’re not saying plain text emails are the only way to slim your email templates down. But it has to be said that using ultra large image and video files definitely should be discouraged if you care about reducing your email carbon footprint. 

We recommend testing the size of your email templates before sending them so that you can remove or reduce any wasteful aspects before you send. This is even more important if you have a large list. 

Promote Eco-Friendly & Sustainable Products Through Email

Another way to reduce your carbon footprint, and also become an ethical marketer is to focus on selling sustainable products and services through email.

By discouraging the likes of single-use products and fast fashion, you can inspire your customers to opt for products with longer lifespans. 

Research by Statista also found that 44% of consumers were more likely to purchase from a brand that had a clear commitment to sustainability. So whether you have an existing sustainable business or want to start one, there is definitely an appetite for your products! 

You might also be interested in: 17 Ways To Be A More Sustainable Business In 2024

Don’t Email Someone In The Same Room

When you email a co-worker in the same office, you might think that email only travels 50 feet or so. But you’re very wrong. 

In a previous post, we told you how sending an email from New York to Dakar would mean that the email travelled 12,115 miles in total. Even though the actual distance between these locations is only around 3,800 miles.

The reason that email miles are greater than physical miles is because mail servers are located across the globe. This means that the distance that any email travels will always be much further than the real distance. 

So next time you want to say ‘thanks’ or ‘meeting in 5’ to someone in the same room? Walk over and say it to them in person.

Shop Or Sell Through Email? Be Careful Where You Bank

Our final way you can reduce the carbon footprint of your emails is to consider where you bank. 

Whether you sell products directly through email or purchase items based on email campaigns you’ve been sent, avoiding any financial institution that funds fossil fuels can have a huge impact. 

The Guardian reports that banks have given $7tn to fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement to lower carbon emissions. So without realising it, where you save, spend, invest or get paid could be directly funding climate change. 

By making your money greener you can reduce the carbon footprint of all your financial activity, including any money you make as a business or money you spend as a consumer.  

Do Any Kind Of Email Marketing? Claim Your Free Trial Of EcoSend Today

Now you know that your digital activity has a carbon footprint, are you ready to do something about it? 

Alongside following the above tips, we’d like to offer you a free trial of EcoSend. 

As a business, you’ll get a full range of tools and features to help you succeed at email. Plus, you’ll get measurable insights not just for your campaigns but for the carbon savings and trees planted based on your usage. You can then use this information for your ESG or similar sustainability reporting. 

With the EcoSend footer, your customers will also know you’re doing your bit for the planet! 

Have any questions about EcoSend before you sign up for your free trial? Please drop us a message and we’ll be right with you.