Reducing your digital footprint at ICH

Help make ICH’s digital estate clearer and more accessible by reviewing, deleting and improving the content you manage.

Over the last few years, we have seen a shift towards cloud storage which has led to efficiencies, collaboration, and paper reduction, but can also contribute towards a carbon-intensive ‘virtual landfill’ if we don’t keep up good housekeeping.

• Regularly deleting old files that are no longer needed, such as draft versions or duplicates;
• Compressing large files, either as a zip file or by reducing the resolution of images;
• Deleting recordings of meetings or other videos that are no longer needed, and preventing recording of future meetings unless strictly necessary;
• Creating shortcuts or links to files that need to be stored in two locations, rather than duplicating the file.

ICH Digital spring clean on the 29th May

By removing the files we no longer need, and improving the way we create new content, we can reduce its digital footprint while making information easier to find, use and maintain. 

As part of the Digital Spring Clean, staff and students are encouraged to look at the files they manage across Websites, Moodle, SharePoint, OneDrive, departmental repositories and local devices. Priority items to remove include: 

• PDFs more than three years old, unless still current or required.
• Duplicate or superseded documents.
• Scanned or image‑only PDFs.
• Lecture slides or resources that are better linked from reading lists or Library holdings.
• Old drafts, unused downloads and folders with no clear purpose. 

Where a PDF is unavoidable, it is important to ensure it is created from an accessible template and includes headings, alt text and proper tagging.