McAfee Demonstrates Environmental Impact of Spam

April 17th, 2009

A week ahead of Earth Day, McAfee is offering insights into spam’s impact on the environment. McAfee’s research reveals that spam is not only a nuisance that hinders business productivity, it also damages the environment and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.On Tuesday, McAfee released a study, Carbon Footprint of Spam. The study spells out the findings of climate-change researchers and spam experts: Globally the annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam totals 33 billion kilowatt-hours, or 33 terawatt hours. That’s equivalent to the electricity used in 2.4 million homes, with the same greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using two billion gallons of gasoline.

“As the world faces the growing problem of climate change, this study highlights that spam has an immense financial, personal and environmental impact on businesses and individuals,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of product development and McAfee Avert Labs. “Stopping spam at its source, as well investing in state-of-the-art spam-filtering technology, will save time and money, and will pay dividends to the planet by reducing carbon emissions as well.”

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