Workshop Tool Manual

Step 1: Create a new session

Type in the name of your company, team, department or any funky other combination of characters of your preference to start a new session and click the button [ADD SESSION].

Step 2: Open your session

Once the session is created, click on the name to open the session. Important to note here is that sessions will always and only be stored locally, meaning no data will be stored or shared with E-Missions or any other digital actor. For you, it means your sessions will stay in your own environment until deleted.

Step 3: Dashboard

Once the session is opened, you will see the empty dashboard of the tool. After completing the different modules in the tool, results will be shown in the Baseline.

Scroll down. Here you will find the modules part of this tool at the moment: Cloud Storage, Email, Social Media and Video Conferencing in black, clickable blocks. Click [Cloud Storage] to proceed.

Step 4: Cloud storage

Here you are asked to insert the size of your data stored in the cloud. Most common cloud storage solutions like Dropbox, One Drive and Google Drive are pre-set but not required to fill if you do not use these.

Fill in the total size of your storage in Gigabytes (GB) for each cloud you have. After doing this, click [SAVE INPUT] to send your input to the Baseline. You will automatically be redirected to the Dashboard.

Step 5: Social media

Click on the button [Social media] to open this module. Here you are asked to fill the amount of followers on your teams, groups or organizations social media accounts. Note: this exercise can also be done for individual accounts. The module is pre-set for the 5 social media platforms which are part of the calculator. Fill in the amount of followers on the account and combine the amount of posts per week you publish by adding all account activities. Split the account activities into text only posts, image containing posts (count the amount of images on average for a week) and video containing posts (count the amount of minutes of video on average per week).

Click [ADD] to add a social media platform you use but is not part of the 5 listed by default.

Click [SAVE INPUT] to send your input to the Baseline. You will automatically be redirected to the Dashboard.

Step 6: Email

Click [Email] to open this module. Here you are asked to analyse your own email send items for a representative working day. This can be done by analysing one typical day or by analysing a week or more and taking the average over the time analysed. Count the amount of ‘Spam emails’ you have send (hopefully none), the amount of ‘thank you emails’ (short reply emails) and ‘confirmation mails’ (confirming an agreement, meeting, purchase, etc).

Next, count the total amount of emails send containing an attachment (PDF or other format file) and fill this in the ‘With Attachments‘ box. Continue counting the amount of activity update mails you have send (updates of a package position, online purchase, etc), the amount of newsletters you have send (count the amount of recipients, not unique newsletters) and mails containing somebody in CC.

Finally fill in the number of people working in your company for which this behaviour is typical professional mailing behaviour*.

*Note: often only 1 person in the organisation or team sends the newsletters. Calculate this by putting all boxes on ‘0’ except the Newsletters box and put the amount of people in the company on 1. This will give the specific estimated ecological impact for the company newsletter.

Click [SAVE INPUT] to send your input to the Baseline. You will automatically be redirected to the Dashboard.

Step 7: Video Conferencing

Click [Video Conferencing] to open this module. Here you are asked to count and fill the amount of hours you typically spend video calling on any of the platforms Zoom, MS Teams or Google Meet. Fill in the total amount of hours for 1 week and make a distinction between video calling from a fixed place (laptop, desktop) and calling cellular (mobile).

Finally fill in the number of people working in your company for which this behaviour is typical professional video calling behaviour.

Click [SAVE INPUT] to send your input to the Baseline. You will automatically be redirected to the Dashboard.

Step 8: Baseline

Your baseline is completed. It shows the estimated Energy Usage per year in kWh, the estimated emissions per year in terms of kilogram CO₂ as a result of this energy need, and the estimated amount of trees required to absorb this amount of CO₂ from the air on an annual basis. This is your digital behaviour tree park.

The 4 modules now contain a % of the total share of emissions, adding up to 100%.

Step 9: Digital Etiquette [your company]

Scroll all the way down to see 4 buttons:
+ CLOUD STORAGE, + EMAIL, + SOCIAL MEDIA and + VIDEO CONFERENCING
Click on [+ CLOUD STORAGE]

Step 10: Actions for Cloud Storage

Here you determine the actions you will take to lower the ecological impact of your Cloud Storage. It has 1 action pre-set: Take unused data out of the cloud. This is the action with the largest potential impact. Click on the action to set a company goal on the amount of ‘unused data’ you will take out of the cloud.

Add own to do’s below if you have other ideas on how to mitigate the ecological impact of your Cloud Storage. You can go to the Cloud Storage topic page on the platform to find other remedial actions.

Click [SAVE TO DO’S] to save your action. This will take you back to the dashboard. Now the dashboard has a Target* next to the Baseline*. The Target_ combines your selected actions and calculates the savings in terms of energy, emissions and trees once these actions are completed.

Step 11: Actions for Email

Here you determine the actions you will take to lower the ecological impact of your email activity. It has 1 action pre-set: Lower % of emails with attachments. This is the action with the largest potential impact. Click on the action to set the company goal on lowering the amount of emails send containing attachments in a % of the current situation.

Add own to do’s below if you have other ideas on how to mitigate the ecological impact of your Emailing. You can go to the Email topic page on the platform to find other remedial actions.

Click [SAVE TO DO’S] to save your action. This will take you back to the dashboard and see the impact your actions will have on your total savings.

Step 12: Actions for Social media

Here you determine the actions you will take to lower the ecological impact of your social media activity. It has 2 actions pre-set: Lower # of images in posts & Lower # of videos in posts. This are the actions with the largest potential impact. Click on the action to set the company goal on lowering the amount of images or video used in social media posts in a % of the current situation.

Add own to do’s below if you have other ideas on how to mitigate the ecological impact of your Emailing. You can go to the Social Media topic page on the platform to find other remedial actions.

Click [SAVE TO DO’S] to save your action. This will take you back to the dashboard and see the impact your actions will have on your total savings.

Step 13: Actions for Video Conferencing

Here you determine the actions you will take to lower the ecological impact of your video conferencing activity. It has 1 action pre-set: Turning camera off. This is the action with the largest potential impact. Click on the action to set the company goal on video calling without active camera in a % of the current situation.

Add own to do’s below if you have other ideas on how to mitigate the ecological impact of your video conferencing. You can go to the Video Conferencing topic page on the platform to find other remedial actions.

Click [SAVE TO DO’S] to save your action. This will take you back to the dashboard and see the impact your actions will have on your total savings.

Step 14: Completed Dashboard

The dashboard for your organization is now completed. You have created insight into the estimated baseline of your professional digital behaviour and the estimated savings when the defined actions are implemented.

The next step is adding this output to your sustainability plan and start working on the actions to become an ecologically responsible user of digital technologies. However, there will always be a left over impact. To deal with this and become a sustainable user of digital technologies, planting trees can be the way to mitigate the left over ecological impact.