What is the CO2 emissions of an email?

I asked myself this question, thinking "what if I started a newsletter?". Because in reality, we rarely consider the CO2 footprint of an email, an internet search, etc.

For all e-commerce businesses, email is the way to stay top-of-mind, to remind customers about Peau-Ethique, etc. But is it really useful to send an email every 15 days? Does it have an environmental impact?

Indeed, sending one email emits 19g of CO2 (source), and as an online store, we send a lot of emails. That's why, at Peau-Ethique, we limit our email sends to 3-4 per year. That's not all; an email stored for a year generates 10g of CO2. That's huge!

So, what are the best practices? Stop sending emails? When you work, you don't really have a choice... For example, an employee working in a company of 100 people would receive 88 emails per day and send 34!

And it's not just emails that emit CO2; internet searches do too! Each query corresponds to 7g of CO2, which is about 9.9kg of CO2 per year! I find these figures staggering.

The same question as for email: what are the best practices then?

For my part, I've installed the Ecosia search engine, which commits to donating 80% of its profits to tree planting (approximately 45 searches to plant a tree). It's not much, but it helps make a small difference.

ADEME, on the other hand, advises minimizing the number of pages consulted. For example, if you're looking for organic lingerie, don't just type "lingerie," but "organic lingerie." The more detailed your query, the fewer pages you'll have to browse.

It's also advisable to type the website directly into the search engine.

Each of these practices could lead to savings of 5kg of CO2 per year!

And most importantly, unsubscribe from newsletters that don't interest you!