The digital carbon footprint refers to the total greenhouse gas emissions generated by the creation, storage, transmission, and use of digital technologies. Although this area may seem “invisible,” it is highly relevant—especially considering that the global digital economy now generates more emissions than the entire aviation industry.
For hotels, the digital footprint primarily consists of three areas:
- Own IT infrastructure:
- Hardware manufacturing: The production of servers, POS systems, tablets, and mobile devices consumes large amounts of energy and rare earth elements. The production of a single laptop can generate over 200 kg of CO₂.
- Operations and maintenance: Ongoing use including cooling of server rooms, backup systems, Wi-Fi networks – often in 24/7 operation.
- Digital services (website, cloud, streaming):
- Data centers: Booking systems, CRM software, and guest data management run on cloud services, whose servers consume huge amounts of power—especially for cooling.
- Website and app usage: Every click on an image, video, or PDF generates traffic. High-resolution images, elaborate animations, and videos increase data requirements exponentially.
- Digital behavior of guests and employees:
- Streaming services: Netflix in a hotel room is convenient – but generates CO₂ through increased data traffic.
- Data junk: Email mailboxes that are never cleaned up, outdated backups, duplicate files – all of this takes up server resources that must be constantly supplied with power.
Example calculation:
A hotel with 100 rooms, where 50 guests stream for an average of one hour each night, produces approximately 5–10 tons of CO₂ per year through streaming alone – more than a mid-size car travels 40,000 km.
A “zero-waste” approach on a digital level means zero data waste. Conscious use of data is a lever for resource conservation and climate protection.