The Internet and the consequences for the environment!

To what extent do the energy consumed by the Internet and the CO2 generated affect our climate and our environment? What can we do against it?

While in 2000 there were still 250 million people who used the Internet every day, by 2018 there will already be 3.9 billion people and by 2021 more than 4 billion, i.e. more than half of the world's population.

According to a study by Stanford University, the Internet accounts for almost 2% of the world's electricity consumption. A single Google search query causes around 0.2 grams of CO2 emissions, which is why internet use in Germany alone causes more CO2 emissions than all air traffic.

One of our favorite online activities is also a real power guzzler. Streaming platforms such as Netflix, YouTube & Co. consume about as much electricity as all private households in Germany, Italy and Poland combined.

A single website with 15,000 visitors per month causes an average of 3.6 kg of CO₂ in the year. If you participate in our campaign "CO₂ Neutral website" join us, we neutralize the CO₂ Emission of your website, in which we reforest 0.36 square meters of forest. Participation in this campaign is completely free of charge for you.

Facts:

The Internet – power consumption & CO₂ Facts:

1. According to a Stanford University study, the power consumption of all Internet servers has increased by more than 30% in the past 5 years.
2. An A-10 megawatt data center consumes the energy of a small town in one month and incurs an electricity bill of $300,000 per month. There are over 500,000 of these data centers worldwide!
3. Half of that energy is used to power the servers that store things like our email and social profiles
4. The other half of the energy is used to cool the servers
5. According to projections, the CO2 emissions generated by the Internet will double by 2030.
6. An average, medium-sized company with around 100 employees causes 13.6 tons of CO2 emissions in just one year with its e-mail traffic. That's about 13 flights from Paris to New York and back.

Google – Power Consumption & CO₂ Facts:

1. The Google data centers alone consume 2 trillion kilowatt hours per year
2. A Google search for "Soylent Green" produces the same amount of emissions as a car that travels 7.5 cm
3. The energy consumed by one Google search query could power a 100 watt lightbulb for 11 seconds
4. A Google search consumes as much energy as a human heart does in 9 minutes
5. The energy consumed by all Google searches in one month combined could power a 100-watt lightbulb for 4,534 years
6. All Google search queries in one month together generate so much CO₂ like driving a car 1,008,263km, that would be 25 times around the world!
7. All Google searches in a month use as much energy as a human heart does in 2 million hours or 235 years.
8. Google generates 260,000 kg of CO every month₂ by searches, the same as a freezer in 5,400 years
9. Every day, all global Google searches correspond to about 700 tons of CO2 emissions.

Facebook – power consumption & CO₂ Facts:

1. An active Facebook user causes 300 grams of CO2 a year just by using the social network.
2. In 2021, Facebook had around 1.9 billion active users, almost 350 million of them in Europe.
3. According to its own statements, Facebook's CO2 emissions in 2017 already corresponded to 979,000 tons of CO2.