The combined environmental effect of all of these data centres has become a growing concern to governments and the broader public.” Each power-hungry facility can pack in tens of thousands of servers, guzzling environmental resources more than entire countries. There are several million data centres globally. He said: “The Dropbox service is totally reliant on Data Centres. Lee Ward, chief revenue officer at Tharstern, also commented.

“For example, medicine labels and packaging, children's books in areas of deprivation, the ability to send and receive letters to those who might be more vulnerable or digitally isolated, I could go on… In reality, paper is one of the few products on earth that already has an environmentally sustainable, circular life cycle.” Posting on LinkedIn, Nutshell Creative managing director Lucy Swanston said: “I wonder… did Dropbox consider the key role that paper plays in our society socially and economically before making unsubstantiated claims. “Because we are advocating the use of print on paper, sending your letter by mail will have more impact, but we ask you to email a copy in the first instance and leave it to your discretion if you want to send the letter,” explained membership and anti-greenwash coordinator Gina Smith. Two Sides has created a sample letter that can be adapted by companies and individuals who wish to add their weight to the campaign. Its data centres accounted for most of its 182,486 MWh of energy use. The vast majority of Dropbox’s own greenhouse gas emissions – around 55,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent – are related to its data centres, according to the firm’s 2019-2020 ESG fact sheet, the most recent available. The greenwashing wording in the promo included: “save the trees”, “learn three ways you can use Dropbox to do your part for the planet by cutting down on paper waste”, “secure your data and the future of forests”, “saving trees is our signature move” and “paper doesn’t grow on trees”. The email had the subject line 'Be-leaf it or not, we can all save more paper'.

Dropbox pricing is deceptive