Is my digital work carbon neutral?

Digital solutions are not carbon neutral. They have a significant carbon footprint of their own. Computing hardware uses rare earth elements, resources that are mined out of the natural environment. Cloud computing consumes a huge amount of electricity. Data transfer is also power hungry.

For instance, “the average CO2 consumption of streamed online video is more than 300 million tons per year.” This is not a reason to avoid digital tools, but it is a call to understand how the tools you choose for your project have an impact.