12 Best Practices for Digital Sobriety in Business

Digital sobriety is an approach that balances digital transformation with environmental responsibility by designing efficient digital services and moderating everyday technology use. It requires companies to question the relevance of their digital activities, measure their environmental impact, and adopt practices that reduce resource consumption while maintaining operational efficiency and competitive advantage.

As public awareness grows around the environmental impacts of digital technology, companies across all industries face increasing pressure to address their digital carbon footprint. The concept of digital sobriety offers a practical framework for achieving ecological transition without sacrificing the benefits of digital transformation.

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The Environmental Cost of Digital Technologies

Despite their apparent intangibility, digitalization and dematerialization are very concrete. They require the use of computer equipment, the manufacture and transport of which require resources and energy. As you can imagine, this is not without direct or indirect impact on the environment. Digital pollution is very real.

According to Green IT, in 2019, the environmental footprint of digital technology represented 1,400 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, or nearly 4% of global GHG emissions. Given its continued rise, the evolution of digital impact does not currently meet the COP 21 targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

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By managing information systems to meet their clients' needs, and by working with well-equipped and connected employees, companies have a clear role to play in helping to reduce the environmental impact of digital technology. But how can we limit the carbon footprint of digital activities in business?

Frédéric Bordage, an expert in Green IT, defines digital sobriety as an approach that consists of designing more sober digital services and moderating our everyday digital use. It's not about doing without this precious resource, but of questioning the relevance of a company's activities with regard to their impact and of encouraging responsible practices. Basically it's about doing more with less.

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Why Adopt Best Practices for Digital Sobriety?

Digital transition is essential to companies to ensure they remain competitive and efficient. Task automation, better working conditions, increased innovation potential, time and efficiency gains, and cost rationalization all depend on effective technology deployment. That being said, all these advantages could disappear if no action is taken to rethink digital practices.

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It is therefore in the interest of every company to embark on digital sobriety, and there are other benefits too.

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Corporate Social Responsibility Commitment

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Companies are increasingly impacted by societal and environmental commitments and the expectations of their various stakeholders including employees, suppliers, customers, and shareholders. Responsible digital technology represents a significant part of this broader CSR strategy. Organizations that demonstrate measurable environmental progress often see improved stakeholder relationships and enhanced brand reputation.

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Regulatory Compliance

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With the implementation of more and more initiatives and more stringent legislation, adopting digital sobriety helps businesses to anticipate the impact of regulations so as not to be taken by surprise. Proactive companies that establish sustainable digital practices today will be better positioned to meet tomorrow's compliance requirements without costly last-minute adjustments.

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Attractiveness and Employer Brand

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Tackling this issue is also an effective way to promote your brand, especially among younger talents, who are increasingly sensitive to corporate social responsibility. Organizations with clear environmental commitments often experience higher retention rates and attract candidates who align with their values.

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Cost Savings

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Opting for more responsible digital practices partly involves reducing energy use. The reduction in CO2 emissions also means a reduction in costs, as well as gains in efficiency. Companies that optimize their digital infrastructure typically see measurable savings in electricity bills, equipment purchases, and operational overhead.

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A Means of Innovation

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Optimizing digital resources paves the way for innovation and the constant pursuit of greater efficiency. Constraints often drive creativity, and the challenge of achieving more with less frequently leads to breakthrough thinking and competitive advantages.

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Equipment Management

Even before electricity consumption, the environmental impact of digital technology is mainly generated by the production of digital devices. Their manufacture and their transformation into electronic components requires the extraction of raw materials and leads to resource depletion. This manufacturing phase is responsible for 59% to 84% of the impacts of the digital sector on a global scale, according to Green IT. The proliferation of smartphones and computers is therefore problematic. In a company, equipment management is key.

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1. Optimize the Life Cycle of IT Hardware

Managing the entire life cycle of electrical and electronic equipment is a way to limit the renewal of devices and reduce the impacts related to their manufacture and end of life. Among the courses of action to be implemented, consider these strategic approaches.

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Opting to rent equipment rather than buy, when this solution is relevant and when its purchase does not allow you to manage the second life or end of life of the equipment, can reduce upfront costs while ensuring proper disposal channels.

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Extending the lifespan of equipment and promoting its reuse, for example through reconditioning, rather than recycling, which consumes a lot of resources and energy, should be prioritized whenever possible.

Reassigning equipment to other user categories within the organization maximizes the useful life of each device. What no longer meets the needs of power users may serve other departments perfectly well for several additional years.

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2. Pool Devices

The pooling of digital devices can be achieved at different levels and offers significant environmental and financial benefits.

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Personal and professional devices can often be consolidated. If possible, keep a single cellphone per employee with a dual SIM card. Another example is setting up a BYOD policy (Bring Your Own Device) that allows employees to use personal equipment for work purposes under appropriate security protocols.

Own equipment pooling encourages the sharing of devices and resources to reduce environmental impact. For example, cloud computing, which pools architectures on the basis of services purchased, reduces the impact of internal data centers. Shared resources typically operate at higher utilization rates, maximizing efficiency while minimizing total equipment needed.

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3. Define a Sustainable Purchasing Policy

Responsible digital procurement is another means of action for companies. You can start by informing your purchasing department of your ambition to reduce ecological impact linked to digital equipment.

Depending on your company's commitment to this issue, you can develop a list of best practices for your purchasing department to use, in favor of more sustainable procurement. The second-hand market, devices that have been refurbished, or certified equipment to guarantee compliance with environmental criteria all represent viable alternatives to new purchases.

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There are resources to help you with this process, such as the "Procurement of Digital Technology" guide on the Digital Impact Alliance. These frameworks provide evaluation criteria that balance performance requirements with environmental considerations.

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Choice of Applications

4. Limit the Number of Applications

It is fairly common for companies to have an excess of digital tools, whether they be hardware or applications and software. Before equipping yourself with new software for your business needs, ask yourself if other tools already perform the same function.

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For example, do marketing and creative teams use different tools to organize, store, create, deliver and ultimately manage all their visual content? To streamline the number of software programs used, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution makes it easier to manage the life cycle of digital content, from creation to the management of creative projects within the solution.

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This practice offers rapid results and also improves team productivity. Consolidation reduces not only environmental impact but also training time, licensing costs, and integration complexity.

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5. Rethink Your Internal Collaboration Tools

A more minimalist approach can also be adopted to limit the proliferation of collaborative tools used internally and any related redundancies. Google Drive, online file directories, Intranet systems, and similar platforms often overlap significantly. This helps to prevent the same documents being stored in different locations, and therefore reduces their energy impact.

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Similarly, for tools developed in-house, an eco-design approach should be encouraged to reduce energy consumption with features that only meet the actual needs of end users, an optimized architecture that promotes modularity and scalability, and measurement tools to track the energy consumption of applications during the development process.

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For more information on this matter, Cigref published a report in 2020 on "Digital sobriety: a responsible business approach" that offers detailed guidance on internal tool optimization.

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6. Opt for SaaS Applications That Reduce Your Carbon Impact

The choice of business applications and software used is key to improving a company's carbon footprint. When acquiring a tool, you can turn to SaaS software rather than on-premises software. This means that the solution is not hosted on your company's servers, but with the publisher, whose services are accessible via a subscription and an internet connection.

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Why is SaaS more environmentally friendly? Faced with a huge surge in data volumes, companies can limit the number of on-premises servers, which have a high carbon footprint. The main benefit of using delocalized servers is the optimization of their use. Because it is shared and more appropriately sized for the businesses' actual needs, the infrastructure consumes less energy.

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At the same time, the data centers to which the servers are outsourced are implementing more and more strategies and innovations to reduce their ecological footprint and their energy consumption. Modern data centers achieve power usage effectiveness (PUE) ratios approaching 1.1, meaning that for every kilowatt used for computing, only 0.1 kilowatts are consumed by cooling and infrastructure.

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Other relevant criteria can be considered when selecting software, such as where to host your data. This will have an effect on the energy consumption of your data transfers, since the closer the server is to the location of data use, the lower the carbon impact. Also consider the energy mix of the country whose data centers are hosting your data. What is the share of energy produced by fossil fuels, and therefore more carbon-intensive?

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As a Digital Asset Management software provider in SaaS mode, Wedia is committed to protecting the environment and seeks solutions to limit its carbon impact and that of its customers. Wedia has been awarded the EcoVadis label for its proactive approach to digital sustainability.

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Our work includes promoting the use of refurbished servers, working with partners who are committed to reducing their carbon impact, and developing an efficient DAM solution. We offer companies different features to embark on this path in turn, including optimized storage, integrated systems to avoid duplication of content, and data-focused analytics to assess the uses and performance of their media.

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Moderation of Uses

On the user side, a few simple practices can be put in place to limit the impact of the movement and remote storage of digital data.

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7. Use Email Wisely

Email is often singled out as responsible for a significant environmental impact, but its storage in data centers represents only 0.5% of its total impact. The biggest impact still comes from the production of the device that is used to write, send and read it.

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When it comes to digital sobriety, it is best to place yourself upstream of use. Instead of spending time deleting emails from your inbox, it is better to rethink your communication. The least polluting email is the one you don't send.

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Here are some best practices that can be adopted. Change your means of communication as soon as possible, prioritizing live chats, instant messaging, or voice calls. Target the right recipients by sending emails only to the relevant recipients, and avoid the "Reply all" function when it is not useful.

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Avoid sending attachments or compress them, otherwise send a link to a shared document. This reduces both the size of emails and prevents multiple versions of files from circulating through your organization.

Regularly delete spam and unsubscribe from newsletters that are no longer of interest. Clean up your contact lists to gain clarity and more targeted distribution, and improve the deliverability of your emails. Remove duplicates, errors, contacts who are obsolete or no longer interested to maintain an efficient communication system.

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8. Be Mindful When You Browse the Web

Web requests also have an environmental impact. It is advisable to avoid the use of search engines, whenever you can, by adopting best practices.

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Directly entering the address of the website you wish to consult eliminates the intermediate step of search engine processing. Using bookmarks to directly access the desired site uses up to four times less energy than going through a search engine.

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Closing unnecessary tabs represents another simple but effective practice. They consume energy by sending requests to constantly refresh themselves, even when you're not actively viewing them.

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9. Managing Data Storage

Regularly updating your corporate drive helps you be more resource efficient, while lowering the costs associated with IT storage and backups. Consider organizing a regular cleanup of storage areas including cloud storage, home directories, and email to delete unused, duplicate or useless data after a certain time.

If you use a DAM solution to store, organize and share your marketing content, you will benefit from analytical and efficiency features to optimize your use with ease. These systems often include duplicate detection, automated archiving, and usage analytics that help identify content that can be safely removed.

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10. Reduce Energy Consumption

Reducing energy consumption is a sensible decision that allows you to reduce both your electricity bills and the environmental footprint of your digital use. While solving this issue naturally begins with the purchase of energy-efficient equipment, some simple and straightforward practices can also be adopted.

Prioritize WiFi over the mobile network. 4G consumes at least twice as much as WiFi according to the BBC. If possible, use an Ethernet cable to connect your devices to the internet for even greater efficiency.

Turn off devices completely rather than leaving them in standby mode. Even in standby, your devices consume electricity, and the screen too. A computer consumes up to 40% of its electricity in standby mode according to ADEME. For example, if you know you won't be using it for more than an hour, switch off your computer, and always at the end of your working day. A power adapter with a switch can be a helpful way to disconnect your devices from any power source.

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Optimize your settings to save kilowatt-hours (kWh) through very simple adjustments. Set screen timeout after 10 minutes of inactivity. Avoid screen savers, which actually consume more power than simply turning off the display. Adjust screen brightness to the working environment rather than keeping it at maximum. Set the power saving mode to activate when the computer battery has nearly run out or during a period of inactivity.

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Stakeholder Awareness and Training

To make sure your entire company is on board with the initiative, information and training is required, as well as in-depth work on the culture of the company as a whole.

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11. Inform Your Employees

You can appoint a sustainable digital manager to encourage and coordinate this initiative in your company, and ensure that all the company's stakeholders are on board. This involves a variety of communication channels focused on digital sobriety.

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Disseminate best practices in the work environment through posters, email campaigns, and regular updates. Gamify the approach by organizing competitions or challenges on digital sobriety. These can create friendly competition while driving measurable improvements in behavior.

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Provide information on the impacts of digital technology by profession, making the information relevant to each department's specific activities. Offer training on responsible tech, green energy, and related topics. Organize an internal repairs café where employees can learn basic equipment maintenance and repair skills.

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Offer awareness workshops, such as INR modules or the Fresque du Numérique, to understand the environmental challenges of digital technology and think about solutions as a team. These collaborative learning experiences often generate enthusiasm and commitment beyond what traditional training achieves.

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12. Train Operational Teams

Be sure to train your employees and communicate on the challenges of sustainable digital technology to incorporate this into the roadmaps of your various departments and teams.

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This concerns digital product design activities in particular. Offer them training in eco-design to create more responsible digital services. This is not only done from a technical point of view, but also an operational one. Simplifying services to offer only what the customer needs, and to optimize the user journey without superfluous information or features, benefits both users and the environment.

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To find out more, the best practices applied to sustainable marketing can be consulted for additional context on how environmental considerations can be woven into marketing strategy.

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Key Takeaways

• Manufacturing digital devices generates 59-84% of the sector's environmental impact, making equipment lifecycle management critical for reducing carbon footprint.
• SaaS applications consume less energy than on-premises servers through optimized, shared infrastructure and modern data center efficiency.
• Simple user behaviors like closing unused browser tabs, using bookmarks, and turning off devices can reduce energy consumption by up to 40%.
• Digital sobriety delivers multiple benefits beyond environmental impact, including cost savings, regulatory compliance, and enhanced employer brand.
• Successful implementation requires company-wide engagement through training, awareness programs, and appointment of dedicated sustainability managers.
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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is digital sobriety and why does it matter for businesses?

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A: Digital sobriety is an approach that balances digital transformation with environmental responsibility by designing efficient services and moderating technology use. It matters because digital technology accounts for nearly 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and companies can reduce costs while meeting sustainability commitments through responsible practices.

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Q: How much of digital technology's environmental impact comes from device manufacturing versus energy consumption?

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A: Manufacturing digital devices generates 59% to 84% of the sector's total environmental impact according to Green IT. The extraction of raw materials, production of components, and transportation all contribute significantly more than the ongoing electricity consumption during device use.

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Q: Is SaaS software really more environmentally friendly than on-premises solutions?

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A: Yes, SaaS applications typically consume less energy because they utilize shared, optimized infrastructure in modern data centers with power usage effectiveness ratios approaching 1.1. On-premises servers often run at lower utilization rates and lack the efficiency innovations implemented in professional data centers.

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Q: What are the easiest digital sobriety practices companies can implement immediately?

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A: Start with equipment lifecycle optimization by extending device lifespan and choosing refurbished options. Implement email best practices like avoiding "Reply all" and compressing attachments. Encourage employees to close unused browser tabs, turn off devices when not in use, and use bookmarks instead of search engines for frequently visited sites.

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Q: How can companies measure the success of their digital sobriety initiatives?

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A: Track metrics including energy consumption reduction, equipment lifecycle extension, number of devices per employee, data storage volume, email traffic reduction, and cost savings. Many Digital Asset Management solutions offer analytics features that help quantify improvements in content efficiency and resource optimization.

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Q: Does digital sobriety require sacrificing productivity or competitive advantage?

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A: No, digital sobriety focuses on doing more with less by questioning the relevance of activities and eliminating waste. Companies often discover that streamlined tool sets, optimized equipment, and conscious usage patterns actually improve productivity by reducing complexity and focusing resources on high-value activities.

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Q: What role do cloud-based tools play in reducing digital carbon footprint?

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A: Cloud-based tools reduce carbon footprint through pooled infrastructure that operates at higher utilization rates and modern data centers with advanced cooling and efficiency systems. Choosing providers with European data centers or renewable energy commitments further enhances environmental benefits.

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Q: How can marketing teams specifically contribute to digital sobriety efforts?

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A: Marketing teams can consolidate tools by adopting comprehensive Digital Asset Management systems that eliminate redundant storage and applications. They should optimize media files for efficient delivery, avoid duplicate content across multiple platforms, and use analytics to identify underperforming assets that can be archived or deleted.

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