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Maksym Lymar is Head of IT Land Transport and is also a member of the eight-strong GreenCulture project team. In this interview, he explains what you can do to reduce your digital footprint.
Interview: 850 kilos of CO2 through digital lifestyle
Mr. Lymar, when we think of CO2, we tend to think of transport, heating and air travel. But the GreenCulture team is putting the digital footprint on the agenda. Why is that?
Maksym Lymar: Because it’s worth taking a closer look. It can be assumed that every German citizen produces twelve tons of CO2 or CO2-equivalent emissions per year. Of this, 850 kilograms of CO2 are attributable to our digital lifestyle – caused by smartphones, laptops, televisions and the like. This figure was published by the Öko-Institut in 2020. It is probably higher now.
“We want to raise awareness of the fact that we consume a lot of energy through the use of digital devices.”
A colleague at DB Schenker has given up digital devices such as smartphones and televisions for a day in his private life. He can earn 100 points from the GreenCulture project for this digital detox day. How much CO2 has been saved?
Maksym Lymar: We don’t claim to be able to assign an exact CO2 saving to every measure. That’s not even the point. We want to motivate colleagues to think about and reduce their own CO2 footprint. The points are motivational aids. Our aim is to raise awareness of the fact that we consume a lot of energy through the use of digital devices. However, this also means that we can save a lot by using them sustainably. This starts with the purchase of the devices and the question of how often we need new ones.
Do you have a specific example?
Maksym Lymar: Take a large flat-screen TV. If you allocate the emissions generated during production to the lifespan, you have to assume 200 kilograms of CO2 per year. For a laptop it’s 63 kilograms and for a smartphone 50 kilograms. Around 40 percent of emissions are produced during the manufacture of such devices. Even greater emissions are caused by their use. This includes direct electricity consumption as well as emissions from data networks and data centers.
“If as many people as possible switch to Ecosia, this could lead to several hundred additional trees being planted every day.”
Does this mean that even if I charge my smartphone with solar power from my own generation, CO2 emissions are still produced through its use?
Maksym Lymar: That’s right. For example, if you make 50 Google searches every day, you produce around 26 kilograms of CO2 emissions per year. For this reason, GreenCulture is rewarding the switch to the Ecosia search engine.
Why is Ecosia better in this respect?
Maksym Lymar: Because most of the proceeds from the use of Ecosia are invested in forest projects. This applies to both private and business searches. At DB Schenker, our colleagues use the platform for around 21,000 search queries every day. That’s the equivalent of 480 trees every day. If as many people as possible also switch to Ecosia privately, this could lead to several hundred additional trees being planted every day. That is GreenCulture’s approach: we want to refute the eternal argument “I can’t do anything on my own”. One person really can’t do much, but at DB Schenker in Germany and Switzerland, we are 16,000 employees. All in all, we can do something.
You are an IT expert. Please tell our readers what else they can do to reduce their digital footprint.
Maksym Lymar: A lot. The GreenCulture team is preparing several posts and blog articles for the coming weeks. These will deal, for example, with the carbon footprint of emails with and without attachments or the question of how to optimize your Internet usage. There will also be a quiz on sustainable communication.
We can look forward to a lot more. Thank you very much for the interview.
