The UK Environment Agency grabbed headlines recently after suggesting that deleting old emails could help ease the strain on water and energy resources. While the idea drew ridicule, the underlying issue is anything but trivial. Data has a footprint—and ignoring it comes at both an environmental and financial cost.
Helen Wakeham, the Environment Agency’s director of water and National Drought Group chair, explained:
“The current (UK) situation is nationally significant, and we are calling on everyone to play their part and help reduce the pressure on our water environment. Simple, everyday choices such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails – also really helps the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife.”
The principle applies just as strongly in business. Every file, email, and duplicate backup stored in the cloud consumes energy in data centres and inflates storage costs. Left unchecked, this “data hoarding” creates not only a bigger carbon footprint, but also unnecessary IT spend and operational complexity.
Catalina McGregor, widely recognised as the pioneer of Green IT in the UK, raised this issue nearly 15 years ago, when asked by Green IT magazine, what more could UK business be doing on the Green ICT front? Catalina responded by stating that her answer would hurt:
“We seriously need to stop collecting data, unless it’s making money for the company. We do not need to be storing so much information and holding it for ten years. We need to stop being afraid of hitting the DELETE button. Just do it with surgical precision and demonstrate the savings in equipment and data centre costs as you achieve your goals.”
At vXtream, we see this every day. Organisations often keep data “just in case,” but without governance or lifecycle policies, it becomes a silent drain on resources. The solution isn’t indiscriminate deletion, it’s smart data management. That means:
• Knowing what data genuinely delivers value.
• Applying retention policies that balance compliance with efficiency.
• Migrating workloads to platforms that optimise for performance, sustainability, and cost.
• Reporting savings in both spend and emissions.
Deleting emails alone won’t save the planet. But embedding data discipline into cloud and infrastructure strategy can reduce costs, improve performance, and support corporate sustainability goals.
At its core, this debate isn’t about a quirky email purge, it’s about making digital infrastructure more sustainable, efficient, and future-ready. And that starts with asking: Does this data serve a purpose?
If the answer is no, it’s time to hit delete.
Image by Dominika P, Pexels
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