The Environmental and Organizational Cost of Unmanaged Digital Data

In this opinion piece, Gerry McGovern highlights the alarming amount of unnecessary and unused data stored in global data centers, which he refers to as ‘crap data’. Drawing from decades of experience working with large organizations, McGovern argues that over 90% of commercial and governmental data is redundant, outdated, or never used. He illustrates this with numerous real-world examples, such as companies with hundreds of terabytes of data, of which only a small fraction is ever accessed, and websites where only a handful of pages receive significant traffic.

The article underscores the environmental cost of maintaining this digital clutter. The rise of digital tools and content management systems has made it easy for organizations to create and store massive volumes of content, much of which is never reviewed or deleted. McGovern also criticizes senior management for their lack of awareness or concern regarding this issue, noting that the low cost of cloud storage has removed the incentive to manage data properly. He warns that AI systems are being trained on this poor-quality data, leading to unreliable outputs. Ultimately, McGovern calls for a cultural shift in how data is valued and managed, urging organizations to prioritize meaningful, sustainable content practices.