Recently, several posts have been circulating on X claiming that the UK Government is “urging citizens to delete emails to save water.” Some posts further claim that doing so could save “thousands of tons” of water by lightening the load of data centers, which require water to cool their systems.
While it is true that the UK is currently experiencing a water shortage and its National Drought Group has issued recommendations on saving water at home, is it really possible to conserve water by deleting old emails? We looked closer to sort out the facts.
Data centers are physical locations that comprise servers and other infrastructure that allows online services to run. In the case of email systems, data centers store emails, attachments and other user data while also providing the processing power to handle email traffic, spam filtering and virus scanning. They also provide the network infrastructure to connect different email servers worldwide.
In order to operate, some data centers do consume large amounts of water through of evaporative cooling – where water is used to cool servers to maintain the necessary temperatures needed for operation.
However, while data centers do store emails, the amount of computational power needed to store them actually does not actually a large amount of heat – particularly if they are only text based. The storage devices used typically sit dormant (in low or no-power states) till they are needed. Rather, it is active and high-intensity tasks such as generative AI requests or video processing that need large amounts of power and generate more heat.
Individuals deleting old emails would, in this context, have an almost negligible impact on water usage. And, some experts say that sorting through old emails and email archives could, conversely, use more energy and water than storing them in the first place.
According to the UK’s Environment Agency in a statement to 404 Media, deleting 1000 emails with attachments could save about 77.5 litre of water in a year. Other estimates being calculated by netizens and news sources range from between 1800 to 74,000 deleted emails (with no attachments) in a year to save 1 litre of water. While there is no one right figure as different data centers around the world operate differently – most estimates that we could find reflect a relatively small amount of water saved.
In comparison, the average daily water consumption per person in Singapore is, according to the Public Utilities Board (PUB), around 142 litres. And, the World Economic Forum has estimated that AI data centers will consume up to 1.7 trillion gallons of water every year by 2027.
While every little effort counts, focusing on more effective measures such as lowering direct consumption of water or installing low-flow fixtures are far more likely to have an impact on water conservation than deleting emails.
Therefore, while deleted old emails can contribute a to saving water, the impact of an individual doing so is extremely limited – a very tiny drop in a massive bucket. We give this claim a rating of partly true.
