Generation Z: 60% have inactive accounts, which emit carbon – 05/12/2023 – Tech

Regarded as one of the age groups most concerned about the environment, generation Z, young people born from 1996 onwards, is also one of those that most harm the environment with “digital rubbish”: 60% of members of this generation maintain inactive online accounts.

The result is unnecessary carbon emissions and, consequently, pollution: the data considered useless associated with these accounts is stored in datacenters, which operate 24 hours a day based mainly on energy supplied by fossil fuels.

The rate of accounts abandoned by young people from generation Z, obtained in a survey by Veritas Technologies (a cloud management company), far exceeds that of older people who abandon digital rubbish: 23% of this percentage is among people over 65 .

“Datacenters account for 2% of all global carbon emissions — about the same as the entire airline industry,” says Gustavo Leite, vice president for Latin America at Veritas Technologies.

The data cited by Leite are in a survey by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). “A single datacenter can consume electricity equivalent to 50,000 homes. With 200 terawatt hours (TWh) annually, datacenters collectively consume more energy than some nation-states”, says the article signed by researcher Steven Gonzalez Monserrate.

For the survey, Veritas Technologies heard 13,000 consumers around the world, among which 1,000 live in Brazil.

Four questions were asked: if the consumer had inactive accounts, if they knew that inactive accounts cause carbon emissions, if they had already tried to close their accounts and the reasons why they kept accounts open.

The results show that 51% claimed to ignore the environmental impact of abandoned accounts, and nearly a third (31%) of Gen Z consumers never tried to close them.

The most common reason is that it doesn’t matter to them personally (33%). Another nearly a quarter (23%) say they don’t have time. Among the respondents, 19% believe that they may need an account someday, 14% find the process of closing the account too complicated and 11% cannot remember the access password.

It is a behavior that contrasts with the result of a report by the World Economic Forum of 2022, which points to young people born after 1996 as the age group most concerned about the impacts of climate change on the future of the planet.

“Generation Z is arguably the most environmentally conscious generation to ever exist, but consciously or not, they are also leading the way among consumers in creating the most carbon emissions from unnecessary data,” says Veritas’ Leite Technologies.

The survey, conducted by consultancy 3Gem on behalf of Veritas, surveyed consumers of all ages 18 and over in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, UAE, United Kingdom and United States. United between February 1 and February 16, 2023. For the purposes of this research, Generation Z refers to those between the ages of 18 and 24.

HOW TO AVOID WASTE

Today, it is up to the consumer to monitor the accounts he creates and then close them if he considers that he will never use them again, according to Gustavo Leite.

A strategy to maintain control over all accounts created on the internet is to keep the welcome emails received at the time of registration. “It’s worth leaving them as reminders for which accounts you’ve created and may want to try to close,” says Leite.

Companies can also be more proactive in closing accounts, as long as their data governance allows it, says the vice president of Veritas Technologies.

“The problem with inactive accounts requires a change of mindset. Many companies keep these accounts open and producing unnecessary data in the hope that the consumer will come back”, he adds.

He recommends three data management practices to reduce the carbon footprint of storage: