Cutting Carbon Through Smarter Data

For any organisation that relies on customer, supporter, or stakeholder communications, whether in retail, finance, healthcare, or the charity sector, data decay is a silent but costly problem. People move, email addresses change, and records become outdated. Without regular maintenance, this leads to:

• Wasted resources: Misdelivered mail, undeliverable emails, and unnecessary print runs drive up costs.
• Environmental impact: Each posted letter emits 25g of CO₂, and storing unused or “dark” data adds to the footprint - 1MB of stored data emits 80g of CO₂.
• Reputational risk: Outdated communications can erode trust and engagement.
• Operational inefficiency: Teams spend time and budget chasing data issues that could be prevented.

In the UK alone, 14.4 million letters are misdelivered or lost each year, with 60% reaching the wrong address. And, with 11% of the population moving annually, the scale of the challenge is clear

Anthony Nolan recognised that inaccurate data wasn’t just a nuisance, it was a sustainability issue, a financial drain, and a barrier to delivering impact.

Anthony Nolan implemented a multi-layered data maintenance strategy with GBG Loqate that included:

• Address cleansing: Removed 5.8% of records with incorrect addresses before use.
  Residency validation: Flagged ~39% of records as outdated, including goneaways and deceased contacts.
• Email hygiene: Identified and removed 10% of stored email addresses due to being invalid.
• Dark data reduction: Deleted 4.85MB of unused contact data to minimise storage emissions.

The project delivered measurable environmental and financial benefits:

• Environmental savings: 6.8 tonnes of CO₂ avoided - equivalent to:
  • driving 26,154 miles in a petrol car
  • charging 170,000 smartphones
  • or growing 110 trees for 10 years.
• Financial savings: £36,295 will be saved over the last 12 months in postage by preventing misdirected mail. (Assuming £0.80 per item)

The result: cleaner data, smarter communications, and a meaningful step forward in sustainability