Planet & Pixels

The workshop series

The workshop “Nachhaltige Datenkultur” (sustainable data culture) builds awareness in three modules. It combines short inputs with group discussions; on 12 March 2025 it was held as an impulse workshop at THEX, the Thuringian centre for business start-ups.

What participants take away: awareness of their ecological footprint in the digital world, new impulses for handling data, new digital habits, and a smaller CO₂ footprint and personal load in a world full of information. A certificate is available to those who complete the accompanying playbook.

Pixel Breaks: five minutes a day

The 15-day programme of the workshop series (11 February to 3 March 2025) is built on Pixel Breaks: one small cleanup task a day, always at 12:00, always five minutes, sent as a calendar invitation. Weekly one-hour sprint meetings link each block of tasks to one of the three modules.

Module 1 · From the analogue to the digital world

Module 2 · Information and data overload

Module 3 · Living and working sustainably

Why it works: each task is small enough to do straight away, happens at the same time every day and shows a result immediately: an emptier inbox, a quieter phone, a tidier folder. Fifteen repetitions do not yet make a habit automatic; in a study by Lally et al. (2010) it took a median of 66 days for a daily behaviour to become automatic. But they establish the cue, the routine and the visible progress on which the habit can grow.

Digital Cleanup Day: the Pixel Break at scale

Digital Cleanup Day applies the same idea once a year to millions of people: everyone does the same small cleanup at the same time. In 2025 it took place on 15 March, directly after the 15-day programme. According to the organisers, more than 541,800 people in 61 countries and territories took part and deleted 2.3 million gigabytes of unnecessary data (Digital Cleanup Day, 2025). Fujitsu used the day worldwide for:

• sessions on dark data and e-hoarding (“clearing up saves CO₂ and nerves”),
• trainings on using collaboration tools,
• workshops on company-wide CO₂ savings,
• sessions for working life and everyday private life.

transform_D Summit 2025

In March 2025 Let’s Do It Germany presented the Planet & Pixels programme at the transform_D Summit of the Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt (DSEE), under the title “Gemeinsam für eine nachhaltige Datenkultur” and with Olfi, the waste monster and learning ambassador of World Cleanup Day, on tour. The DSEE supported a programme of Let’s Do It Germany; the WCI was co-applicant and accompanies these events scientifically. Live polls asked the audience when they last took out their rubbish, and when they last cleaned up their desktop. The talk linked “waste blindness” in the analogue world with waste blindness in the digital world and ended with six steps that everyone can take:

1. Create awareness
2. Clear structures and simple rules
3. Responsibilities and accountability
4. Use tools sensibly
5. Learn and improve together
6. Culture change instead of a one-off action

Left: Daniela Schwerdt (ambassador World Cleanup Day Germany), Holger Holland (initiator World Cleanup Day Germany) and Olfi. Right: Olfi at a cleanup. Photos: Planet & Pixels

Why it matters

Storing data that is never used again caused an estimated 5.8 million tonnes of CO₂ in 2020 (Veritas, 2020). Information and communication technology accounts for 2.1–3.9 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than aviation at around 2 % (Freitag et al., 2021); projections reach up to 14 % by 2040 (Belkhir & Elmeligi, 2018).

E-mail shows the scale: the number of e-mails sent and received worldwide each day is forecast to rise from 361.6 billion in 2024 to 424.2 billion in 2028 (Statista, 2025). The footprint of a single e-mail depends heavily on the assumptions; Berners-Lee (2010) estimated 0.3 g CO₂e for a spam mail, 4 g for a typical e-mail and 50 g for one with a large attachment. Most stored data is never used again; see the databerg on the Sustainable Data Culture page.

Talks and workshops

Planet & Pixels has been presented at conferences, universities and companies since 2023. The WCI accompanies these events scientifically.

1. 18 Mar 2023
   Digital Cleanup Day

   Global action day

2. 19 Feb 2024
   Fujitsu Data Cleanup Week

   “Planet and Pixels: Humanity at the Core of Digital Data Cleanup”

3. 16 Mar 2024
   Digital Cleanup Day

   Global action day

4. 11 Jun 2024
   RWTH Aachen University, AIP conference

   Data-driven innovation for sustainability and twin transformation

5. 20 Jun 2024
   Fujitsu conference, Munich

   CIOs and a global citizen movement on generative AI, sustainability and digitalisation

6. 20 Sep 2024
   World Cleanup Day 2024, Berlin

   CIOnet, Fujitsu and World Cleanup announce the expansion of the Planet & Pixels campaign

7. 14 Nov 2024
   Leibniz Association, annual conference of the library working group

   “Data-Driven Innovation and AI for Sustainability”

8. Feb 2025
   BCBT, Berlin

   Learning series with the 15-day Pixel Break programme

9. 12 Mar 2025
   THEX, Thuringian centre for business start-ups

   Impulse workshop “Digital Cleanup als Schlüssel zu nachhaltiger Datenkultur”

10. 15 Mar 2025
    Digital Cleanup Day

    Global action day

11. 23 Mar 2025
    Freie Universität Berlin

    Impulse workshop “Nachhaltige Datenkultur”

12. Mar 2025
    transform_D Summit, DSEE

    “Gemeinsam für eine nachhaltige Datenkultur” with Olfi

13. 22 Oct 2026
    We Create Future Stage #4

    Intelligence in the Loop: AI and sustainable data culture

14. 23–26 Oct 2026
    BCBT Hackathon

    Implementation concept in the theme cluster sustainable data culture

Research background

The programme builds on Holger Holland’s thesis “Der Einfluss von Soft Skills auf die nachhaltige Kommunikation von virtuellen Teams in kleinen und mittelgroßen Umweltschutz-NPOs” (2023). It examines how six soft skills (communication, problem solving, teamwork, empathy, self-management and resilience) shape sustainable communication in virtual teams, and proposes lean principles such as the 5S method to reduce the energy footprint of everyday digital work.

In preparation: Global Digital Balance 1990–2040

A white paper currently in preparation asks how the exponential growth of digital data, driven above all by AI, affects global CO₂ emissions, energy demand, ecological costs and planetary boundaries between 1990 and 2040, and which systemic measures can counter these developments.

Partners

Fujitsu and Fsas Technologies are partners of the programme; CIOnet, the network for CIOs and IT leaders, is a partner of the campaign.