The Agile Sustainability Initiative, aiming to continuously improve the State of Sustainability in Agile (SoSA), invited participants to a Digital Cleanup Gathering on March 20. This was in support of the Digital Cleanup Day with the idea of digging through our digital cupboards and starting spring cleaning in the style of the World Cleanup Day, where people have fun with friends and neighbors while cleaning up the neighborhood.

Digital Cleanup Day is an annual global initiative, encouraging individuals and organisations to delete unnecessary digital data to reduce carbon emissions and pollution. It combats “digital pollution” and the energy consumed by storing unused files, apps, emails, etc. At the end of the session, attendees were asked to submit the results!

This year’s session opened by asking participants about their expectations for what they would discover during the hands-on session. We kicked things off by setting out the scene and a sense of urgency: “Technology is no longer an industry, it’s the fabric layer of any business,” outlining facts and figures from the stretch energy grids and the fact that we have tried, but the accumulation of data hasn’t led us to make better decisions. AI and quantum computing are pushing these figures further still.

The good news is that cleaning up digitally pays off in three ways: lower carbon footprint, higher data security, and cost savings. We grounded these benefits by showcasing real-life experiences and stories of ROI results within a few organisations. This seemed to really resonate with the audience. 

Rolling Up Our Sleeves

Within this context, we turned to our digital archives for guidance. We drew on a previously published Quick Start article from the Sustainability Initiative: Digital Clean Up, This. Is. How. It is a practical, action-oriented piece organized into three sections: Assess, Clean Up, and Monitor.

The meeting chat was our repository, and it became a live stream of wins, discoveries, and commiseration. A quick selection of what people found:

• Old documents from 2017 that no longer served any purpose
• A medical receipt from 7 years ago
• 62 open browser tabs, many of which turned out to be not needed and or not working
• Old file versions, taking up space to be reclaimed
• Duplicate photos across apps, and blurred or accidental shots that had accidentally backed up in the cloud (also a couple of treasure photos to keep!)
• Downloaded files “just in case,” but when looked at, were not needed after all
• An outdated app still occupying phone space
• 6 physical binders of printed documents, now destined for donation

The chat generated a rich set of practical suggestions that have now been folded into the Quick Start entry “Digital Clean Up. This. Is. How.” Thank you all for your contributions, energy, and can-do attitude. 

What a productive 20-ish minutes! We deleted emails, cleared large attachments, removed duplicate photos, unsubscribed from newsletters, freed up cloud storage, reviewed log retention, removed unused applications, and shared tips with one another. Several participants committed to setting a monthly recurrence in their calendar to block and keep the habit going.

We closed with some reflections on the session, and it was wonderful to see how a simple, structured framework and peer company can make the difference in actually “doing the thing,” rather than just talking about it.

As Agilists, we already have the skills, the mindset, and the ways of working. It is simply up to us to leverage them to enable better choices in how we design, build, and enhance products, and in how we maintain the digital environments we inhabit every day. Digital is physical.

Sometimes the only thing we can do is start. And start, we certainly can.

Now, it’s your turn – it’s time for your digital spring cleaning! Tell us how it goes.