Are You a Digital Hoader?

By Sarah Pfledderer

Preaching sustainability as a sound business strategy is just the start of being a truly sustainable company. Practising sustainability takes much more effort and oftentimes taking a hard look at the habits our companies instate — and evaluating whether their risks to the environment are worth our time and money anyway.

In the 21st century, this means looking toward our business’s technologies and also the digital data we keep because, as hard a realization as it might be, our digital footprints do affect our carbon footprints.

For reference: Our devices and servers are expected to account for nearly 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. And it’s not only on cities to improve waste management.

We as individuals and businesses must be proactive — and we must think beyond just what we see in front of us. We must peer into our devices, into our clouds, and our email servers and take inventory of the digital clutter we amass. We must consider whether we have digital hoarding tendencies.

With Earth Day impending on April 22, what better time than now for individuals and businesses alike to look toward the e-waste they produce — and namely that waste we don’t see, such as old digital documents, bookmarks, and years-old emails.

To help, Norton pared down some common types of digital clutter to consider tossing, digital hoarding habits to break, and more downsides of producing e-waste. Pour over them all in the infographic below from norton.com.

Sarah Pfledderer has over a decade of writing and editing experience in magazine journalism and blogging. She specializes in lifestyle topics and occasionally dabbles in tech. By day, she is a content marketing specialist at Siege Media.