Data Orchard’s 15-minute Data Cleanup Challenge
Sian Basker, Co-chief executive, Data Orchard
It's ACEVO's first ever #ClimateWeek (9th – 13th September 2024). As happy members of ACEVO and a social enterprise committed to climate action, Data Orchard is celebrating the occasion with our 15-minute data cleanup challenge.
If you want to join us in the challenge, here’s what we’re doing:
Day #1 – Bin the bulk in your Inbox
Go to your email inbox. Click on the paperclip to show emails with attachments (they'll be sorted by 'Huge', ' Very large', and so on). Set the alarm clock for 15 minutes and delete as many as you can, from biggest to smallest.
Day #2 – Stop stuff coming at you
Spend 15 minutes unsubscribing from any newsletters that you never read/don't enjoy or don't care about. (Preferably not our own Data4Good tips tools and tales, but, hey, if it’s not your bag, save the planet!)
Day #3 – Delete the cat* videos
Go to your gallery of photos and videos, sort by file size and set the clock again. Delete your 10M cat photos and videos (start with the videos because they are usually massive file sizes). Or, if your organisation has a youtube channel/other video sharing platform, go there and identify the three worst, most embarrassing and least watched videos and talk to the comms team/whoever’s responsible to get them taken down.
*or other pets/pointless surplus videos, as applicable
Day #4 – Check your website’s carbon footprint
Check out your organisational website’s carbon footprint using a free website carbon calculator. Book a meeting with your marketing and comms team/website provider to find ways to improve.
Day #5 – Set the Data Cleaning Day date
Pretty much every organisation struggles with ‘house-keeping’ when it comes to the growing digital mess of old data/files that need cleaning up (for some there’s a whole paper mess too). Put a date in the diary (in a few months’ time) and invite your team to work together for a day on cleaning up the mess and getting organised. See how we went about our first data cleaning day.
Offsetting your conscience
If you haven’t got time and are feeling guilty about not doing the 15-minute data challenge, you could offset your conscience by donating to one of the charities we support – Trees for Cities and Cool Earth. Read more about how Data Orchard supports carbon reduction projects here.
Of course, the best way to get over feeling guilty is to do something about it. It’s never too late to start, whatever your organisation. Here’s how we got started (with the data of course!): by estimating Data Orchard’s carbon footprint.