As climate change becomes an increasingly pressing issue, businesses are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and become more environmentally sustainable. One area where businesses can make a big impact is in their email marketing practices. By adopting eco-friendly email marketing practices, businesses can reduce their carbon emissions and contribute to a healthier planet.

So, what exactly is eco-friendly email marketing? In simple terms, it refers to the use of sustainable practices in the creation, distribution and management of email campaigns. In this article, we’ll take you through some top-tier tips that you can use to make a positive impact through email marketing.

Let’s go green!

1. Reduce your email file size

Large email file sizes can contribute to increased energy usage and carbon emissions. How? Every time an email is sent, it travels through various servers before it reaches its intended recipient. All of this data transfer requires energy and energy production often results in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, BBC says that the carbon footprint of a single email can be as much as 4g of CO2 emissions - and with a large number of emails being sent each day, those emissions can quickly add up.

Don’t be discouraged; there’s always a healthier option. By optimising images and reducing the overall size of your emails, you can reduce the amount of energy required to send your email campaigns. This not only helps the environment but can also improve email deliverability and the user experience.

2. Use email instead of paper

By using email marketing, you definitely reduce the carbon footprint because print media requires the use of paper, which contributes to increased carbon emissions. Printing and distributing print media also requires a lot of energy because of the use of machinery, transportation and fuel.

Email communication generates very little waste and can be easily deleted or archived without leaving any physical traces. That’s why it's currently a powerful marketing channel that you can use to benefit our environment.

3. Sending targeted and relevant emails

Sending targeted and relevant emails to subscribers can help reduce the number of unnecessary emails that are sent, thereby reducing carbon emissions. By segmenting your email lists and ensuring that your email campaigns are only sent to subscribers who have opted-in and are interested in the content, your business can reduce the overall volume of emails that are sent and protect our environment.

4. Send your receipts via email

Gone are the days when you absolutely had to print your receipts. Nowadays, even brick-and-mortar stores like Mr Price Home (a South African lifestyle store) allow customers to opt to have their receipts sent to them via email. This is a good, eco-friendly practice.

As an online store owner, of course, you can implement this too and encourage your subscribers not to print the receipt. Printed receipts or any other email content can easily end up in the bin and we don’t want this, right?

5. Encouraging recipients to take eco-friendly actions

As a business owner, you can also use your email marketing campaigns to encourage recipients to take eco-friendly actions, such as recycling or reducing energy usage. By including calls to action in emails that encourage sustainable practices, your business can help raise awareness and encourage positive environmental behaviours.

Short and sweet, right?

It’s all part of reducing, reusing and recycling. We all love Mother Nature and it’s great to know that we as email marketers can have a positive impact on our environment by implementing healthy email practices.

If we want to save the planet, we need to start with our inboxes. Practicing eco-friendly email marketing is not only responsible but it's part of a greater global trend to treat the environment with more love and care. Where we can we should all strive to do our part to reduce our carbon footprint and promote sustainability in our marketing practices. If anyone tries to tell you that email is so last century, just remind them that it's actually the future - the eco-friendly, sustainable and totally awesome future.