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In the era of streaming and teleworking everywhere, the environmental impact of digital technology is not negligible. In 2022, Ademe estimated that 2.5% of France’s carbon footprint is linked to digital technology. Those who wish can easily adopt an eco-responsible attitude thanks to very simple everyday actions.
Manage the consumption of your connected devices
To consume less energy on your computer or smartphone, it is advisable to lower the screen brightness, opt for a “night” mode (a dark background then appears on most applications) and configure a screen standby after only a few minutes. Also remember to deactivate GPS and Bluetooth when they are no longer needed, as well as WiFi as soon as you leave your home.
Keep your equipment as long as it works
Still concerning equipment, it is obviously advisable to keep it as long as possible before recycling it (by offering it to someone or an organization that will take care of recovering what can be recovered) and renewing it, also favoring second-hand (reconditioned) if possible.
Prioritize WiFi
Connection question, at home, whatever the connected device, try to favor Wi-Fi over a 4G (or 5G) connection. Indeed, watching a video using a Wi-Fi signal rather than the mobile network consumes up to 23 times less energy according to the Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME).
Playing on streaming quality
Unsurprisingly, streaming is by far the most energy-intensive usage. By slightly lowering the image quality, via the settings of your favorite streaming platform, you will help to reduce the energy consumption a little corresponding to your habits. Another simple action is to prevent the automatic playback of the next episode. It is also better to download content and watch it later than to watch it in streaming.
Managing your emails…
You should also know that the more emails you receive and store in your mailbox, the more energy it consumes on the dedicated servers. It is therefore better to, on the one hand, delete all messages that are no longer of any use or that are far too old, and on the other hand, unsubscribe from useless newsletters. Also, favor group sending rather than the same message sent several times to a single recipient. Even more so if there are also one or more attachments.
…and its contents in the cloud
The same goes for all the content you store on the cloud (documents, sounds, images, videos, etc.), don’t hesitate to do a major clean-up regularly to see what is really useful to keep or not.
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