PFALZKOM takes part in digital data clean-up

On Monday, June 23, the “Digital Data Clean-up” campaign of the Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) initiative was launched throughout Germany and PFALZKOM is an official partner this year.

With the “Digital Data Clean-up”, the CDR initiative aims to counteract the development of further uncontrolled growth in data volumes. Our aim is to “clear the decks” together and get rid of superfluous or outdated files, emails and content uploaded to clouds and avoid the creation of new, unnecessary data.

Together with various organizations (companies such as start-ups, SMEs and large corporations from a wide range of industries, as well as public authorities, municipalities, educational and cultural institutions and other organizations), we have declared war on data waste. Armed with checklists for efficient data cleaning, we tidy up desktops, laptops as well as drives, get dust off the cloud and make our Outlook fresh again.

Why are we at PFALZKOM taking part in this campaign?

With this measure, we are supporting a more sustainable approach to digital data, as this is part of our digital responsibility. By taking part in the campaign, we want to raise awareness of the impact of the digital world on the climate, environment and health. Storing unnecessary content, outdated data or overfilled mailboxes not only causes greenhouse gas emissions, but is also often digital ballast for employees. This can lead to stress and get in the way of efficient work. In terms of social sustainability, data cleaning is therefore also a contribution to the mental health of our employees – a good way for everyone personally to reduce digital ballast.

Our everyday lives are digital – but at what cost?

• Digital data causes immense amounts of CO₂ emissions, water and electricity consumption worldwide. Did you know that digital technologies account for around 7% of total CO₂ emissions in Germany?
• Or that the annual global water consumption of the digital world is equivalent to 2.178 trillion 1-liter bottles?
• Every click, every file saved and every email sent leaves traces. A single long email can emit up to 17 g of CO₂ equivalents.
• At the same time, digitalization also offers opportunities: digital technologies could contribute up to 24% to achieving Germany’s climate targets by 2030.

But cleaning up data doesn’t just benefit the environment: storage space costs money and unnecessary amounts of data drive up resource consumption and costs. In addition, digital tidying promotes data protection, economy and security and ensures that we stay clearer in our heads.