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The Carbon Footprint o EmailSpam Report
 
The Carbon Footprint of Email Spam Report
•
An estimated worldwide total o
62 trillion spamemails
were sent in 2008
•
Globally, annual spam energy use totals 33billion kilowatt-hours (KWh), or 33 terawatt hours(TWh). That’s equivalent to the electricity used in
2.4 million homes in the United States,
with thesame GHG emissions as 3.1 million passenger carsusing two billion United States gallons o gasoline
•
Spam iltering saves 135 TWh o electricity peryear. That’s like taking
13 million cars
o the road
•
I every inbox were protected by a state-o-the-art spam ilter, organizations and individuals couldreduce today’s spam energy by approximately75 percent or 25 TWh per year. That’s equivalentto taking
2.3 million cars
o the road
•
The average GHG emission associated with asingle spam message is 0.3 grams o CO
2
. That’slike driving three eet (one meter) in equivalentemissions, but when multiplied by the annualvolume o spam, it’s like
driving around theEarth 1.6 million times
•
A year’s email at a typical medium-size businessuses 50,000 KWh; more than
one ith o that annual use can be associated with spam
•
Filtering spam is beneicial, but ighting spamat the source is even better. When McColo,a major source o online spam, was taken olinein late 2008, the energy saved in the ensuinglull — beore spammers rebuilt their sendingcapacity — equated to taking
2.2 million cars
 o the road
•
Much o the energy consumption associatedwith spam (52 percent) comes rom end-usersdeleting spam and searching or legitimate email(alse positives).
Spam iltering accounts or just 16 percent o spam-related energy use
Key Findings
Abstract
1
Summary
1
A Day without Spam
2
The Carbon Footprint o Spam
3
Conclusion
8
Reerences
9
CONTENTS
 
Abstract
All email users throughout the world, including consumers andbusinesses, struggle with the scourge o spam email. The costs andrisks associated with spam have been well documented and haveled to attempts by both government and private industry to curtailspam, notably the United States legislature’s CAN-SPAM Act o 2003and proposals ranging rom large email providers banding togetherto implement sender authentication systems to pay-to-send models.
The Carbon Footprint o Email Spam Report
1
Until McAee
®
commissioned ICF International tostudy the global environmental impact o spamemail, the ocus has been on the nancial alloutrom spam. ICF’s study determined that takingmeasures to discourage spam — which accountsor 80 percent o all emails — not only savesorganizations and individual email users time andmoney but can lead to meaningul reductionsin energy use and resulting greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions.By taking an environmental approach to the costo spam, McAee hopes to aid the decision makerswho are working to stem the tide o spam emailand open a timely conversation on the costs oemail spam to the planet. This white paper startsthat conversation by discussing key ndings romthe ICF report.
Summary
Email spam is a signicant problem or both in-dividual users and businesses. Its nancial impactand, in the case o some phishing schemes, thepersonal pain and loss has been the subject omany research studies. But until McAee commis-sioned climate-change consultant ICF Internationaland spam expert Richi Jennings to calculate theenvironmental impact o spam, spam’s contributionto GHG emissions had been largely ignored.This report looks at global energy expended tocreate, store, view and lter spam. ICF calculatedthe GHG emissions associated with this energyuse, resulting primarily rom the burning o ossiluels or electricity generation.This white paper uses the ICF analysis to makea compelling argument or stopping spam at itssource as well investing in state-o-the-art spamltering technology, which not only saves timeand money but can pay o in big dividends tothe planet by reducing the carbon ootprint oemail spam.
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