70% of Americans Feel Digital Guilt Yet Keep Scrolling and Streaming, Airedale by Modine™ Survey Finds

Audio By Carbonatix

RACINE, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 30, 2025--

As AI adoption surges and digital tools become inseparable from daily life, Americans are wrestling with a widening gap between convenience and the environmental toll it leaves behind.

According to new research from Airedale by Modine, a global leader in precision cooling solutions for data centers, 70% of Americans feel guilty about their digital footprint, yet most continue unchanged unless the impact is made visible and unavoidable. The survey shows that while people recognize that streaming, gaming, and AI carry a cost, that awareness often stays abstract—rarely driving behavior change unless it is tied to clear signals or credible proof of cleaner infrastructure.

The Airedale 2025 Digital Guilt Index survey, conducted via the third-party platform Pollfish, gathered insights from 1,000 U.S. adults to evaluate how Americans perceive the environmental impact of their digital lives, where they assign responsibility, and what would actually change behavior.

Key findings from the report include:

• Digital guilt is real but inconsistent: Americans score just 36/100 (on a scale of 1 - 100) on Airedale’s Digital Guilt Index, a new benchmark for how conflicted people feel about the environmental cost of their online lives, admitting guilt while scrolling on unchanged.
• Caring doesn’t equal change: 78% say they care about the environment, but 69% admit their guilt hasn’t shifted in the past year.
• Impact is hidden and underestimated: 58% see an hour of streaming as “low impact,” while half have never thought about their digital footprint.
• Responsibility is shifting upstream: 62% blame data centers rather than personal devices, signaling public pressure on tech companies and the data center ecosystem, not individuals, to lead on sustainability.
• Design nudges can shift behavior: 56% said they have never lowered their streaming video quality to save energy, but 67% say they’d cut back with a red carbon warning, and 59% would accept pop-ups or slower load times.
• Credibility is fragile: 35% don’t trust “carbon-neutral” claims, but 63% want companies to advertise eco-friendly data centers, and 68% assign responsibility to tech companies or “all equally.”

The evidence is clear: People care about the environment and recognize there is a footprint behind streaming, AI, and the cloud. Yet habits persist, the cost of the infrastructure remains out of sight, and broad claims struggle to earn trust. The result is a perception–action gap: concern is present, but it rarely steers everyday use.

A more productive path is emerging. For operators facing surging compute demand, climate-conscious cooling is a decisive lever: higher-efficiency air and liquid solutions, heat-reuse readiness, free-cooling strategies, low-GWP refrigerants and advanced controls can cut energy and water use while protecting uptime and rack density. These gains help data centers meet rising load without compromising sustainability, and they create credible metrics that product teams can communicate simply.

“Digital experiences win when the infrastructure behind them earns trust,” said John Williams, Group Vice President – Americas DC, Airedale by Modine. “The conversation has moved beyond slogans. People want assurance that the systems powering their feeds and AI are efficient, resilient, and getting cleaner over time. Our purpose at Airedale by Modine is to engineer a healthier world. By reducing the cooling footprint and giving operators clear, credible ways to show progress, we help expand capacity without expanding impact. That is how the industry turns digital guilt into confidence and secures the license to grow.”

Digital life is not slowing down. Providers that pair efficiency investments—especially in cooling—with transparent communication will be best placed to turn digital guilt into confidence, meeting the moment on performance and the climate in one move.

Visit the Airedale 2025 Digital Guilt Index for full results and additional insights.

About Modine

For more than 100 years, Modine has solved the toughest thermal management challenges for mission-critical applications. Our purpose of Engineering a Cleaner, Healthier World™ means we are always evolving our portfolio of technologies to provide the latest heating, cooling, and ventilation solutions. Through the hard work of more than 11,000 employees worldwide, our Climate Solutions and Performance Technologies segments advance our purpose with systems that improve air quality, reduce energy and water consumption, lower harmful emissions, enable cleaner running vehicles, and use environmentally friendly refrigerants. Modine is a global company headquartered in Racine, Wisconsin (U.S.), with operations in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. For more information about Modine, visit www.modine.com.

View source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250930603941/en/

CONTACT: Media Contact

Idea Grove

[email protected]

KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA WISCONSIN

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: CLIMATE CHANGE OTHER ENERGY UTILITIES ENGINEERING ENERGY MANUFACTURING SCIENCE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MOBILE/WIRELESS OTHER SCIENCE RESEARCH WOMEN HVAC MEN GREEN TECHNOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY FAMILY RECYCLING ENVIRONMENT CONSUMER OTHER TECHNOLOGY OTHER CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS COMMERCIAL BUILDING & REAL ESTATE URBAN PLANNING INTERNET CONSTRUCTION & PROPERTY HARDWARE TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE BUILDING SYSTEMS

SOURCE: Airedale by Modine

Copyright Business Wire 2025.

PUB: 09/30/2025 09:20 AM/DISC: 09/30/2025 09:19 AM

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250930603941/en