Spam emails are everywhere. 

They fill our junk boxes, and frustratingly often make it into our inboxes too.

Promoting nonsense at the best of times and phishing scams at worst, it’s fair to say that spam has long been the enemy of all email inbox owners. 

But now, the impact of spam has revealed even more worrying finding: it is directly responsible for climate change. Some have even likened its impact on the climate crisis to that of the airline industry.

With almost 100 billion spam emails sent per day, and every single email emitting up to 50g of carbon, it’s time we finally stamped out spam for good.

Here’s the full story. Plus, how your business can reduce its carbon emissions associated with email marketing as a whole.

Spam Email Statistics – Why Is Spam Fuelling Climate Change?

• 88 billion spam emails were sent each day in 2021 – Statista

• 87% of all emails sent daily in 2021 were spam – Statista 

• Between October 2020 and September 2021, 283 billion spam emails were sent – Statista 

In the above graphic, you’re looking at data by Tech Business News. It found that of the 10 most spam-prevalent countries, each received around 7-8 billion spam emails per day.

This amounts to between 769,776 tonnes of carbon generated every year by spam email in the Netherlands, up to a staggering 890,489 tonnes in the United States.

Furthermore, an article published by the United Nations estimates 120 trillion spam emails are sent yearly across the globe.

Responsible for 36 million tonnes of CO2 in total, 3.6 million trees would need to be planted per year to offset these emissions.

So it’s fair to say the climate impact of spam is a lot worse than we ever could have previously imagined.

Other Reasons Why Spam Sucks

If alarming carbon emissions wasn’t bad enough for spam email, there are plenty of other reasons why spam just doesn’t do the trick for email users.

Remember, that spam isn’t just related to obvious scams. Any email can be classed as spam if it’s sent without the user’s permission.

Likewise, send-to-all email blasts, or even ‘oops’ emails can also be considered spam, making the issue widespread and therefore, not always the work of scammers.

Allow us to explain why email providers and businesses alike need to do more to tackle spam, beyond the devastating impact it’s causing on climate change.

Spam Is Illegal

Sending spam email can land you in serious hot water, as it’s in breach of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.

Every email sent in violation of the act can face a hefty penalty of $50,120, which could soon get very costly for the worst offenders.

There are several rules to follow to ensure your emails aren’t classed as spam, even if you’re a legitimate business. These include not using false or misleading information (including within subject lines), making sure you tell users where you are located and giving an opt-out option, among many others.

Spam Can Harm Your Reputation And Email Domain

Email providers hate spam as much as inbox recipients, because it also makes them look bad.

Users who receive spam will likely mark that email as such. As soon as email address or email domain has lots of spam flags, it’s not long before that entire domain gets blacklisted.

What this means is that the email domain will forever struggle to send emails which actually land in inboxes, let alone get opened, because they’ll automatically be filtered as spam by the network. For any genuine business, this would be a disaster.

Spam (Or Even Mass Email Blasts) Offer Up A Poor ROI

You know that explanation we just gave about spam emails being filtered as spam?

Well, when it comes to doing any form of email marketing, emails which don’t even get seen aren’t going to earn you a sale.

We also know that failing to use segmentation (i.e. sending the right message, to the right person at the right time), means everyone gets targeted with the same message. This happens to be a super ineffective email marketing technique, which will also offer up a poor ROI.

Those Who Send Spam Often Have Bad Intentions 

Let’s not forget that the majority of those who send spam can have some unpleasant associations with criminal activity.

A common example is phishing scams, where scammers try to pose as certain companies or agencies to get your personal details. Some even build platforms capable of taking fraudulent payments directly.

The sooner we get rid of spam for good the better, seen as our inboxes should be safe places.

Nobody Likes Spam 

Finally, spam never looks professional, nor is it ever welcomed.

Nobody ever receives a spam email with enthusiasm, let alone do they reply or even want to do business with that person (unless they don’t realise they are being scammed).

Therefore, there is little logic in sending out spam, because most people are aware it’s trash that needs to be immediately deleted. At some point, spam accounts get closed anyway, making it pointless to even set one up.

As we mentioned, if someone gets caught sending spam email, they can also face heavy financial penalties too.

EcoSend – Reduce Your Email Carbon Emissions With The World’s First Climate-Conscious Email Marketing Platform

Did you know it’s not just spam email that has a carbon footprint, but all email?

We’ve come up with a solution to this problem – EcoSend.

EcoSend is our new climate-conscious email marketing tool. It runs on renewable energy to cut those email carbon emissions, and we’ll plant trees on your behalf just for using us. We’re also re-investing some of our profits into climate related causes.

Claim your free trial of EcoSend by clicking the above image. We look forward to welcoming you aboard!

If you have any questions about EcoSend, please get in touch and we’ll be right with you.