Digital Cleanup Action Week :
at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences

The "Digital Cleanup" campaign week took place at the university during the week of 17-21 March. Inspired by theglobal Digital Cleanup Day which is dedicated to the topic of digital waste every year, this was the second time that such a campaign was organised at the university. The background to this is the high energy requirements and the associated emissions caused by sending and storing digital data.

This year, the focus at the university was on email inboxes. The main target group of the campaign was the employees of Fulda University of Applied Sciences, who were asked to delete unnecessary emails from their inboxes as part of the Cleanup Week and were supported by various short online formats on different key topics. In addition to an opening event with motivating words from the Vice-President for Learning and Teaching and Digitisation, Prof. Dr Jörg Kreiker, various colleagues provided insights, e. g. into the new mail archive and tips on tidying up, practical tips on data protection and archiving regulations and background information on sustainability in the digital world. The campaign week was coordinated centrally by the Sustainability Office and planned and implemented with the involvement of the IT Support, the Data Protection Officer, the University Archivist and the Digitisation Office, among others.

We would like to thank everyone who diligently tidied up and sorted out their mailboxes during the week!

Over the course of the campaign week, a total of 1.31 million emails were deleted by university employees, which represents a reduction of 5.4% of the total volume. This not only makes it easier for employees to continue their daily work with their own emails, but also facilitates the initial migration to the new email archive and, last but not least, every email that is not stored on a server saves energy and thus greenhouse gas emissions. Conservatively calculated, the amount of emails deleted corresponds to at least approx. 2600 kg of CO₂, which is the amountemitted when driving 15,000 km in a mid-range petrol car, i.e. the average annual mileage.

In the following week, a further 150,000 emails were also sorted out, so that by 31 March a total of 1.46 million emails had been deleted (i.e. 2900 kg of CO₂ saved).

The various events organised during the campaign week were received with great interest by the employees. If you would like to take a closer look at one or other of the topics, you can find the relevant presentations on the intranet.

General information on the issue of digital waste and tips on how to clean up your digital work, study or private life can be found on the Digital Cleanup Day homepage and in our university's own guidelines for Digital Cleanup Day 2024.