Digital Carbon Emissions?
- Thread starter _Scott_
- Start date
We do get asked this by some of our "blue chip" clients, namely banks and insurance companies who have to (or chose to) include this information in their annual reports for their supply chain environmental data.
As we use Google and Amazon cloud services we are able to extract this information from their product reports, but if we were running our own hardware I wouldn't know where to go for it. Thankfully Google and AWS publish this information so we use that.
As we use Google and Amazon cloud services we are able to extract this information from their product reports, but if we were running our own hardware I wouldn't know where to go for it. Thankfully Google and AWS publish this information so we use that.
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It actually does, public listed companies publish their environmental impact which includes CO2 emissions output from running the servers that host the websites and email.
I don't pretend to know how it is calculated but the big brains at Google have done the maths for me.
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OK, fair, that is true but I was answering from the perspective of awareness of the point rather than specific to the individual. Perhaps I should have made that clearer in the way I answered ?.
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Yep in all liklihood they're unaware that websites require servers and servers require electricity and electricity generation can produce carbon. But who knows
Paul.
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I watched a documentry on this a while back. Very interesting case. There was a big server on Norway, they placed themselves next to a hydroelectric dam so they got very cheap green electricity and because it was so cold there - they used to envornment to cool their servers. No refreigeration needed. they just hydrocooled the excess heat into water bodies outside.
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- Original Poster
- #16
Really interesting thread going on here.Yep in all liklihood they're unaware that websites require servers and servers require electricity and electricity generation can produce carbon. But who knows
Paul.
I'll just add that the emissions of websites also include the emissions from the energy required to transmit the data, and then to use it (e.g. on desktops/mobile). It's complicated and increasing relevant as more companies turn to digital.
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I use and recommend Krystal Hosting ...
"In 2017 we became one of the first hosts to be powered by 100% renewable energy - no vague carbon offsets, just a direct relationship between our datacentre and Ecotricity to power the facility with energy generated by 100% renewable sources."
"In 2017 we became one of the first hosts to be powered by 100% renewable energy - no vague carbon offsets, just a direct relationship between our datacentre and Ecotricity to power the facility with energy generated by 100% renewable sources."
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Go all the way back to the bloke wielding a shovel to dig the minerals needed to build the computer, all the energy required to manufacture and ship. The energy needed to run all the internet services and develop all the websites you visit and applications you use.
IT is profligate energy wasters. Look at the huge power usage of data centre and streaming services.
Just saying your pc and internet provider are green is meaningless.
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- Original Poster
- #31
When you buy something new, be it a phone, monitor, server, USB stick, (? looking around office for non-tech examples..) desk, chair, bottle of whiskey ?, it has a carbon footprint before you even use it. This is known as the 'embodied' carbon, and as @fisicx mentioned, IT equipment is rife with this.
When it comes to tech, around 80%-90% of the product's 3 year carbon emissions are baked in as 'embodied' carbon. This comes from the whole supply chain, from mineral extraction to assembly, distributions, storage, marketing, shipping, packaging ....
Actually, even beyond IT/Tech, this kind of emission in 'purchased products and services' is the lion's share of most companies' footprints and falls into what's known as Scope 3 reporting ... something most companies are really struggling to understand.
When data centres say they are carbon neutral or negative, many of them exclude these Scope 3 numbers, meaning they are talking only about 10-20% of their entire footprint. The answer to that is to buy less new things and turn to refurbished products more... I won't go into that here (but happy to another time).
So coming back to the emissions of websites, it is really difficult to get reliable, meaningful numbers because 1) most data centres don't tell you about embodied carbon 2) the emissions associated with web page viewing include those due to the energy used to create them, to host them, to deliver them and to consume them.
It's tempting to think it's a small problem that will go away when someone else deals with it, but unfortunately there are some sectors (mostly regulated or companies who supply to regulated) that are needing to understand and report on their website carbon emissions, so we can't just "do nothing" for fear of being wrong or because its too difficult.
(actually, the original question was to see how far this 'trickle-down' regulation strategy has propagated already)
Anyway, here are some folks doing it as well as they can:
The creators of this website are part of a consortium of tech leaders developing the methodology behind how to measure the carbon footprint of websites. Plug your home page in and figure out how many grams of CO2 it creates each time it loads. www.websitecarbon.com
When it comes to tech, around 80%-90% of the product's 3 year carbon emissions are baked in as 'embodied' carbon. This comes from the whole supply chain, from mineral extraction to assembly, distributions, storage, marketing, shipping, packaging ....
Actually, even beyond IT/Tech, this kind of emission in 'purchased products and services' is the lion's share of most companies' footprints and falls into what's known as Scope 3 reporting ... something most companies are really struggling to understand.
When data centres say they are carbon neutral or negative, many of them exclude these Scope 3 numbers, meaning they are talking only about 10-20% of their entire footprint. The answer to that is to buy less new things and turn to refurbished products more... I won't go into that here (but happy to another time).
So coming back to the emissions of websites, it is really difficult to get reliable, meaningful numbers because 1) most data centres don't tell you about embodied carbon 2) the emissions associated with web page viewing include those due to the energy used to create them, to host them, to deliver them and to consume them.
It's tempting to think it's a small problem that will go away when someone else deals with it, but unfortunately there are some sectors (mostly regulated or companies who supply to regulated) that are needing to understand and report on their website carbon emissions, so we can't just "do nothing" for fear of being wrong or because its too difficult.
(actually, the original question was to see how far this 'trickle-down' regulation strategy has propagated already)
Anyway, here are some folks doing it as well as they can:
The creators of this website are part of a consortium of tech leaders developing the methodology behind how to measure the carbon footprint of websites. Plug your home page in and figure out how many grams of CO2 it creates each time it loads. www.websitecarbon.com
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I have one at cleaner than 92% and one at cleaner than 96%.
Nitropack got one site with a large DOM to cleaner than 77%.
But the rest .... gulp!
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I don't feel so bad now
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website - Dirtier than 81% of websites tested.
Greenpeace UK website - Dirtier than 90% of websites tested.
Extinction Rebellion UK website - Dirtier than 65% of websites tested.
ClientEarth website - Dirtier than 54% of websites tested.
The Climate Coalition website - Dirtier than 81% of websites tested.
The Climate Action website - Dirtier than 51% of websites tested.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website - Dirtier than 81% of websites tested.
Greenpeace UK website - Dirtier than 90% of websites tested.
Extinction Rebellion UK website - Dirtier than 65% of websites tested.
ClientEarth website - Dirtier than 54% of websites tested.
The Climate Coalition website - Dirtier than 81% of websites tested.
The Climate Action website - Dirtier than 51% of websites tested.
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- Original Poster
- #39
This is an interesting point. You can tell which hosts are running on green energy, there's a database here www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/tools/directory/
That leads, though to another point that often comes up in conversations - "surely at some point it wont' matter because the rate at which green energy is expanding, it will all be green" (or such like). Well, that's not quite true either. (and I won't bore you with why)
The point is we need to focus on optimising website performance and energy use, thereby reducing carbon emissions instead of just taking an approach that all energy will someday be carbon-free (which it won't, and it definitely won't be free either).
Anyway, my point here isn't to lecture and it's not directed at you @antropy at all, I'm also answering some of the other points in this thread
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