There's no shortage of tips and how-tos for a more sustainable lifestyle; the internet is (thankfully) full of guides and checklists on avoiding plastic, saving electricity, saving water, and on and on. That's why here we only share with you the tips that we also implement ourselves, that come easily to us or that gave us a little " Aha " moment.
Do you have a tip for us that we should publish here? Then drop us a line!
CO2 in office and home office - Data as an energy guzzler
Delete emails and write fewer of them
Do we really need that quick "OK"? Do I really need to CC all five of my colleagues? If we think about the necessity of emails for a moment, we can already save quite a bit of CO2. And for example, take time once a week to delete the emails you don't need anymore. Or get into the habit of deleting them immediately after reading or working with them. Every saved email costs data in the data centers. There is a lot of potential to save! And if you can't part with some mails, maybe you could save them locally?
Unsubscribe from newsletters
How many newsletters do you receive that you regularly click off? That's hundreds of unnecessary emails that are sent. Unsubscribing is not only worthwhile for more order in your inbox, but is also good for the environment. This can also be transferred to private life, where (at least in our experience) even more unnecessary newsletters are circulating through inboxes. But beware of spam mails: Under no circumstances should you reply to them or click the "unsubscribe" link! Better block the sender. More information here.
Deactivate signature in reply mails
Every character sent creates data. The less of it you send, the better! In addition, many signatures also contain images, which significantly increases the amount of data. And from the second email on, the signature no longer provides any real added value, as it is included in the email history.
Turn off the monitor during breaks and at the end of the day
A monitor on standby draws a lot of power. So always remember to turn it off completely when you are away from your desk for a while. And here’s an analogue tip for the forgetful among us: A small sticky note at the monitor's edge can help. 🙂
Don't become a data hog
Maybe it makes sense to keep different versions of a document during the course of a project. But at the latest after completion you can delete a lot of data. Even if they are stored locally, maybe you make a regular cloud backup? This unnecessary data is already consuming a lot of energy. It's a similar story with media. Here, a unified media database is worthwhile. This prevents a picture from being stored multiple times in different folders. So: Get to the folders and clean out your data garbage!
Avoid screensaver
The most beautiful vacation pictures, fancy shapes that twist and turn. Looks nice as a screensaver, but consumes unnecessary power. Lock your screen even during short absences (indispensable for data protection reasons alone) and then leave it black.
