Crown Information Management calls time on data waste: the hidden cost of ROT revealed

Crown Information Management's latest whitepaper highlights the hidden costs of ROT data, suggesting ways to transform it from a burden to a sustainability opportunity.

  • Wednesday, 3rd December 2025 Posted 4 months ago in by Aaron Sandhu

A new whitepaper from Crown Information Management reveals that Redundant, Obsolete, and Trivial (ROT) information is silently draining corporate budgets, with up to 50% of enterprise data sitting unused. This hidden burden drives up storage, backup, and compliance costs – yet most businesses remain unaware of its financial impact.

The report, titled From ROT to ROI: How Sustainable Information Management Saves Money, outlines how eliminating ROT can deliver immediate ROI, with savings often appearing within the first year.

In one case study, a regional construction firm reduced its cloud footprint by 110TB and destroyed 6,700 boxes of paper records, cutting costs and improving discovery times.

The whitepaper estimates that deleting 100TB of cloud data could save $27,600 annually, before factoring in backup and replication costs. ROT also impacts productivity: 62% of employees say they spend too much time searching for information, often due to outdated or duplicated content.

Beyond financial savings, ROT clean-up supports sustainability goals. By reducing data centre demand, paper waste, and e-waste, businesses can lower their environmental impact while improving compliance with regulations like GDPR and standards such as ISO 21964 and NIST SP 800-88.

Tim Rushent, Director of Digital EMEA, Crown Information Management, said: “Most companies I consult with are paying to store and protect information they do not need. ROT hides in everything from boxes to collaboration platforms. By removing it, organisations not only save money – they reduce risk, improve productivity, and shrink their carbon footprint.”

Crown Information Management’s six-step program – inventory, policy alignment, digitalisation, secure destruction, right-sizing, and ongoing control – offers a practical roadmap for organisations ready to tackle ROT and unlock value from their data.

Aruba has joined the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) to support the development of...
Obrela's latest report sheds light on a more sophisticated cyber threat environment, highlighting...
Tenable Research has identified a vulnerability in a Microsoft GitHub repository that could affect...
PHP remains widely used in the open source ecosystem, while some organisations report challenges in...
Wasabi Technologies has secured a $250 million credit facility to support investment in its cloud...
Infrawatch reports on ProxySmart’s SIM-farm operations and their potential role in online fraud...
UK executives face rising pressures from AI-accelerated decision-making, grappling with the demand...
Commvault has released details of AI capabilities focused on managing data, agents, and recovery...