When we think about sustainability on campus, we often picture buildings, travel, waste, or energy use. Digital storage rarely makes the list. Yet behind every file we save, every email we keep “just in case”, and every forgotten folder sitting in the cloud, there is a very real financial and environmental cost.
We recently highlighted during our digital clean-up day communications that digital storage is no longer an invisible or unlimited resource. Combined with the results of Digital Clean‑up Day 2026, it’s clear that how we manage our data on campus now has serious implications for both our budget and our environmental footprint.
See our guidance on how to have a digital declutter on UniDesk: Managing your data – Self-Service Portal
The myth of “Free” digital storage
Cloud storage feels abstract. Files live “somewhere else”, and from a user perspective, deleting or not deleting data seems inconsequential. In reality, every document stored by the University sits on physical servers that must be powered, cooled, backed up, and maintained continuously.
Digital storage therefore carries two unavoidable costs:
- Financial costs, through licensing and additional storage charges
- Environmental costs, because data centres consume significant energy to run and cool systems
As a large organisation, the University generates and stores vast amounts of digital material across OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook. While much of this data is essential, a significant proportion becomes what we refer to as “dead data” — outdated, duplicated, or no longer required files that continue to consume resources simply by existing.
Why the financial impact is growing
One of the key drivers for action now is a change to how Microsoft allocates storage to universities. Microsoft’s new licensing model reduces our overall storage allowance, with additional charges applied once we exceed the agreed limit.
The scale of the issue is clear. At the time of Digital Clean‑up Day 2026, the University’s total cloud storage usage was over its allocation by approximately 110 terabytes. If this level of usage continues, it could result in additional costs of around £30,000 per year from 2026 onwards, with further increases likely in future years if storage continues to grow.
These are not abstract figures. This is money that could otherwise be invested in teaching, research, student support, or sustainability initiatives — but instead risks being spent on paying for unused or unnecessary data.
The environmental cost we don’t see
Beyond finances, digital storage has a significant environmental impact. Servers storing our files must be powered and cooled 24/7, regardless of whether the data is ever accessed again. The more data we retain unnecessarily, the more energy is consumed to keep it available.
Digital Clean‑up Day exists to shine a light on this hidden impact. What may feel like small individual actions — deleting old drafts, emptying recycling bins in Outlook, or removing duplicate folders — can collectively reduce energy use and associated carbon emissions when adopted across the institution.
Managing digital storage responsibly is therefore not just an IT issue; it is part of our wider commitment to environmental sustainability.
What digital clean‑up day 2026 showed us
Digital Clean‑up Day 2026 demonstrated that meaningful change is possible when teams take targeted action. One standout example was the work carried out by the Infrastructure Development team, who reduced their SharePoint storage from 208GB to 87GB, achieving a 42% reduction in data held within their site.
While this change alone is “a drop in the ocean” compared to total institutional storage, it provides a powerful example of what can be achieved through focused effort — and how results multiply when many teams take similar steps.
Small actions, collective impact
The most important lesson from Digital Clean‑up Day is that managing storage does not require dramatic or complex interventions. Practical steps include:
- Deleting outdated, duplicate, or unused files
- Clearing old emails and large attachments
- Reviewing shared folders and legacy content from past projects
- Moving personal files off University systems where appropriate
Individually, these actions may seem minor. Collectively, they help reduce costs, lower environmental impact, and improve system performance across the University.
A shared responsibility going forward
Digital storage will only continue to grow as teaching, research, and collaboration become more data‑driven. The challenge is not to stop creating data, but to manage it responsibly — keeping what we need, deleting what we don’t, and building better habits around digital housekeeping.
Digital Clean‑up Day 2026 showed that real progress is possible. The task now is to make digital storage management part of our everyday working culture — not a once‑a‑year activity, but a shared, ongoing commitment.
Because when it comes to digital storage, what we keep matters — financially, environmentally, and institutionally.
See our guidance on how to have a digital declutter on UniDesk: Managing your data – Self-Service Portal