Welcome to lessimpact.org

A place to learn how to reduce the environmental impact of digital technology

Digital technologies have brought us many benefits. In particular during the COVID-19 pandemic we wouldn't have been able to conduct much of our work and learning safely without the use of digital communications and collaboration platforms.

However, data is not etherial. It is stored using atoms and transmitted using electromagnetic waves. So storing it, moving it around the planet and bouncing it off satellites uses up energy and materials. This means that there is an inescapable environmental impact from the use of digital technologies. So it is imperative, given the climate emergency, that we find ways of reducing that impact as much as possible.

We hope that the tools and resources we're putting together here will help everyone learn how to reduce that impact.

Looking to reduce the environmental impact of your online video sessions?

Switching off cameras during a conference call can reduce your carbon footprint by up to 96%!

Fill in the details to find out how much of an impact you can make:

How many people, other than yourself, do you expect to join the sessions?
You can enter partial hours (e.g. 0.5 or 2.25)
For example, for an academic module how many sessions are in the module?

Impact

This is how much you can reduce the environmental impact by asking attendees who are not speaking to switch off their cameras:
CO2
Up to 0.20 kg