A new campaign launched in the UK is encouraging people to delete unnecessary photos and videos from their phones to help reduce the environmental impact of digital storage.
The initiative, titled ‘Not on myPhone’, has been launched by M+C Saatchi Group UK and Bauer Media Outdoor in partnership with environmental organisation Let’s Do It World ahead of Digital Cleanup Day 2026. The campaign aims to highlight the hidden carbon emissions linked to cloud storage and changing everyday digital habits.
According to the campaign organisers, with around 7.4 billion smartphones in use globally, the environmental cost of storing unused digital content is significant. In the UK alone, the average person takes about five photos daily, contributing to more than 800,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually — a footprint they say is comparable to nearly a million flights between London and New York.
The campaign encourages people to spend about 30 minutes cleaning their phones by deleting unwanted files. It estimates that removing around 100 photos and a few videos could save carbon emissions equivalent to those produced by driving a car for one kilometre.
As part of the campaign’s creative approach, organisers used crowdsourced images of blurry photos, duplicate selfies, screenshots and receipts — typical clutter found in many phone galleries — and displayed them on large outdoor digital billboards across major UK cities including London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The images used in the campaign have already been deleted, and the outdoor displays are designed to be temporary, disappearing after 48 hours.
The effort also forms part of the global Digital Cleanup Day movement led by Let’s Do It World. Since 2020, the initiative has seen participation from 175 countries, with more than 1.7 million people collectively deleting over 16.8 million gigabytes of data, helping prevent the annual emission of about 3,360 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
As part of this year’s activities, the University of Northampton is also running a week-long pilot programme encouraging students and staff to adopt digital sustainability practices, including a dedicated day for deleting unused photos.
Heidi Solba, President and Head of Global Network of Let’s Do It World, said: “Digital pollution is a growing issue that most people never think about. Every photo, screenshot and duplicate image stored in the cloud requires energy to maintain. Digital Cleanup Day encourages people to take small but meaningful actions to reduce their digital carbon footprint. ‘Not on myPhone’ helps make this massive problem visible and shows how simple behaviour changes can make a real difference.”
Guy Bradbury, Creative Partner at M+C Saatchi Group UK, added: “Most of us have thousands of photos on our phones we will never look at again. We store them without giving it a second thought, or a thought for the energy it takes to keep them sitting on a server somewhere. Created in partnership with Bauer Media, this iconic campaign gets people to look again, driving behaviour change and encouraging the nation to take 30 minutes to clean up their carbon cloud.”
Louise Stubbings, Partnerships and Creative Director at Bauer Media Outdoor UK, said: “Digital sustainability is an issue that affects all of us, yet we often don’t feel any personal responsibility for it. By donating some of our most impactful digital outdoor sites to the ‘Not on myPhone’ campaign, we hope to help bring this hidden carbon cost into public view in a way that’s relatable, accessible, and behaviour changing.”
The campaign is also being supported through social media outreach and international media placements in countries including South Africa, Dubai and Brazil, encouraging wider participation through the hashtag #NotOnMyPhone.
