The Digital Data Clean-Up is a joint effort by various organisations as part of the CDR Initiative. The aim of the campaign is to inspire employees in companies and other organisations to clean up their data on hard drives, network drives, email inboxes and in the cloud and to support them in the implementation.

Since the first edition of the Digital Data Clean-Up in September 2023 was a great success, the campaign is taking place for the second time this year. Last year, almost 50 organisations, such as start-ups, SMEs and large corporations from a wide range of industries, took part in the campaign. There were also authorities, municipalities, educational and cultural institutions and civil society organizations. This broad spectrum of participants shows that the topic is equally important for all types of organisations.

According to estimates by the Oeko-Institut from 2020, the digital CO₂ footprint of a person in Germany is 739 kg CO₂eq per year. ¹ That is around 7% of the total CO₂ footprint. ² These greenhouse gas emissions arise both during production and the use of devices. For example, a desktop computer that is used for five hours a day already causes 38 kg of CO₂eq per year during its use. ³ 10 GB of online storage in the cloud already causes 1 kg of CO₂eq per year. ⁴ And also search engine queries, video conferences and emails having large attachments drives up our emissions. ⁵

We want to counteract the development of ever-increasing amounts of data and floods of emails with the Digital Data Clean-Up campaign and delete unnecessary data or avoid new ones. With our campaign we want to create awareness among employees and thus strengthen the sense of community in the participating organizations.

Overall, the campaign not only has a positive impact on the environment and climate, but also on costs. Because storage space costs money. In addition, (digital) tidying promotes data protection and security and ensures that your head is tidier, which strengthens your mental health.

The campaign takes place from September 16th to September 27th, 2024.

The implementation of the campaign itself is up to the participating organisations and can be designed in a modular and flexible manner. The participating organisations are supported by the office of the CDR Initiative by providing materials for preparation and implementation. These include, for example:

• Templates for tutorials and checklists for self-use
• Concept for conducting your own hands-on calls with employees
• Content for newsletter posts or quizzes
• Construction kit for collecting employee feedback

We also enable colleagues to exchange ideas with each other in order to learn from each other and exchange solution and deletion strategies with each other.

* Most of the material will be in German. Nevertheless, we plan to translate parts of the materials, such as the checklists, into English. If the official language in your organisation is English, please contact us and we will find ways for you to participate, too.

The more organisations join the Digital Data Clean-Up, the better!

Our invitation to participate applies to all interested companies and organisations who, together with their employees, want to clean up the data waste on their hard drives and in the cloud. It doesn’t matter what industry you come from and whether you only employ a handful of people or are a large corporation. The important thing is that you want to make a serious contribution together with us.