Brits’ ‘thank you’ emails have a massive carbon footprint

New research reveals more than 64m ‘unnecessary’ emails are sent every day which result in nearly 23,500 tonnes of carbon a year in the UK

Just about to send that ‘thank you’ email? Stop!

You could contribute towards reducing the UK’s carbon footprint by sending one less of those “unnecessary” emails.

That’s according to new research, which reveals Britons send more than 64 million unnecessary emails every day which result in nearly 23,500 tonnes of carbon a year.

Such unactionable one or two-word pleasantries include ‘thank you’ and ‘thanks’ which top the list, followed by ‘have a good weekend’, ‘received’ and ‘appreciated’.

Other common offenders are ‘have a good evening’, ‘did you get/see this?’, ‘cheers’, ‘you too’ and ‘LOL’.

The research commissioned by OVO Energy found each UK adult sending one less ‘thank you’ email a day would save more than 16,400 tonnes of carbon a year.

That’s equivalent to more than 81,000 flights to Madrid or taking 2,224 diesel cars off the road.

The supplier is, therefore, calling on people to “think before you thank”, as 71% of Brits wouldn’t mind not receiving a ‘thank you’ email if they knew it was for the benefit of the environment and helping tackle the climate crisis.

In addition, 87% said they would be happy to reduce their email traffic to help support the same cause.

Katie Russell, OVO Head of Data and Analytics, said: “At OVO Energy we believe we can fight the climate crisis together, making everyday changes that cut carbon – whilst making life better. We want to show people how every action has a carbon impact, even a simple email. We need to change our behaviour at every level and help people make a start with the easy first steps.”

The supplier has developed a software that identifies when a user has sent a potentially unnecessary email and prompts them to be more thoughtful.

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