PROJECT NAME: Corporate deGIFer PROJECT AUTHOR: INCO team
Big Idea Organizational Readiness score: 4/5 Functional Readiness score: 5/5 Technical Readiness score: 4/5
My plan is to reduce the digital carbon My company provides educational This is 5/5 because it would be easy to I think it is 4/5 because I’m not sure how
footprint of my company by removing courses around the world. Their aim is implement. It just may take time to we could (efficiently) monitor whether
GIFs from our company email signature. to build a new, sustainable and inclusive make the decision company-wide. every individual has changed their
economy. Their mission is to boost signature, nor how we could measure
Vision equality in future-driven industries. the total impact of this idea, e.g. how
much CO2 was avoided from removing
Given the above, I’m confident that they the GIF. That said, it really only requires
Everyone at my company uses the same
would be willing to make such a small individuals to delete the GIF, which only
email signature, which includes a GIF
change to announce the large benefits takes a few seconds.
image (animated image).
of my idea.
During the Green Digital Skills course, I
I think the readiness is 4/5 because it
have learned that emails and GIFs
may require policy change, a
produce CO2 emissions. I am motivated
company-wide announcement would
to raise awareness of this fact and to
be required, and then it would still
reduce the CO2 output of unnecessary
require individuals to implement the
emails.
changes.
Removing the GIF file from the
signature is a simple change that can
imiidietly reduce our digital carbon
footprint.
I will calculate the difference in CO2
equivalents (CO2e) between sending
emails with and without GIF images. I
will prove to my company that they can
be much more sustainable with one
insignificant change.
PROJECT NAME: Corporate deGIFer PROJECT AUTHOR: INCO team.
Project Description Stakeholders Implicated Gap Success Criteria
All employees will need to change their This idea requires very little shift from Make one other advocate for
signatures. We could also share our the company’s aims or processes. environmental improvements in the
If there are 60 employees at the team.
company, and each employee sends change with external stakeholders to Readiness levels are high so it should be
about 5 emails per day with their email create wider change, e.g. clients, an easy win.
customers, learners Remove GIF-s from 50% of sent
signature attached, then the total e-mails in 60 days.
number of emails sent with GIFs
attached is 300 per day
300 emails per day x 260 working days
per year = 78,000 emails per year
The CO2 emission from a single email ~
0.3g
The approximate CO2 emission from an
email with a GIF (since GIFs are big files
with slow load times) ~ 10g
Strategies Next steps
The total CO2 emissions from an email
with a GIF x 78,000 emails = 780kg per Calculate the true number of emails
year Determine the value of GIFs on email
sent daily/weekly by company staff; signatures - who made the decision?
identify how many of those include Why?
the company signature and GIF;
calculate the true CO2 output of such
Work with Communications
Objectives emails. Drivers department to see if the objectives of
the email signature could be met
Once this is known, I can make a
Remove GIF image from ALL company Our company’s website displayed, “1.5M without a GIF.
stronger case for implementing this
email signatures. change, and the company can make a tons of CO² avoided = 66M trees” - I
more accurate/honest announcement think they would like to increase this Create easy instructions for coworkers
Possibly even switch the GIF for a note of the CO2 avoided without figure by reducing their digital carbon on how to remove GIF-s.
that says, “We have removed our GIF mistakenly greenwashing. footprint also.
from our email signature to reduce ~9g Work with HR and upper management
of CO2e”. to roll out a plan to re-educate INCO
employees on company email signature
policy.