Why digital is not automatically sustainable – but digital order is
22.02.2021
More and more people are developing an increasingly detailed digital identity at an ever earlier stage. And it is usually made up of thousands of photos, chat histories and online accounts in a rather chaotic way. Sure, digital photos don’t consume photo paper, digital chat histories don’t consume stationery and online accounts don’t consume analogue folders – but still, all these digitised versions consume resources – namely electricity and water.
“We clean up far too little in the digital realm. Every 18 months, storage capacity doubles for the same price. We deal with it in a way that simply expands the possibilities and don’t realise what we are doing in terms of ecology at the same time,” explains co-founder of memoresa Jörg Schädlich.
The realisation that digital media ultimately reside on hard drives of servers and thus have a resource-intensive existence is not yet there among many people. Many users do not think about the fact that digitality is a form of transmission that is always linked to technical devices. And these consume energy.
How much data do you really need? And how much of it must be permanently available? These questions arise when our users begin to question their digital order. But they also confront podcaster Daniela Slezak, who talks with Jörg Schädlich about how we can bring order into our digital existence that is also sustainable.
You can listen to the episode “Bring order to your digital filing system and your digital legacy” in the podcast “Tidy up Let go Fly”. The focus is on digital order and structuring of documents and notes. What usually goes from the letterbox to the table to the drawer is digitally tucked away in this episode.
Are you interested in the complete interview? You can listen to the podcast on Spotify.
