• by Ray Schultz , February 8, 2022

A single commercial email produces 0.174 g of CO2, compared to 19.5 for the average direct mail letter, according to an analysis from digital marketing platform Sendinblue, conducted by Aktio in 2021. 

Moreover, a 2,000-piece email campaign produces 350g of CO2-- half that of a 30-second TV ad, the company says. 

These totals are based on campaigns sent by Sendinblue for its clients, and may not be universal. But the firm claims that its customers save 707,000 tons of CO2 emissions when using email instead of direct mail. 

Moreover, the average company produces the equivalent of 2,552 tons of CO2, between purchasing electricity for company facilities and unowned indirect emissions like business travel and purchases, based on a 2020 analysis.  

Sendinblue has developed an emissions simulator for its platform, which allows clients to calculate an email campaign’s carbon output. This reveals CO2 emissions based on monthly emails sent and is adjusted based on location.

The analysis proves that “companies should rely on email for communication and has informed our decision to integrate new changes to our platform, like creating sustainable email templates and adding an expiration date for emails, to minimize impact on servers,” states Steffen Schebesta, CEO and VP of corporate development at Sendinblue. 

Based on the 2020 analysis, Sendinblue has identified four ways of reducing its carbon footprint, which apparently could serve as a model for other companies: 

• Educating employees to make responsible decisions 
• Developing a company CSR purchasing policy when selecting new providers
• Identifying and supporting environmental initiatives
• Developing new features to reduce the platform’s carbon impact.