How to calculate the CO2 emissions of a website?

Question

How can I calculate the amount of CO2 generated to view / serve my website?

Given the number of page views on my site, how can I work out how much energy is used by the webserver, the telcoms infrastructure and the viewer's PCs to view my website a day.

Knowing that, how can I calculate how much CO2 is being released into the atmosphere, so I can purchase the appropriate number of carbon offset credits?

Thanks!

Guys, thanks for your thoughts.

But I'm looking for something a little more scientific - especially when some of my websites are really high traffic.

I suspect that it isn't so insignificant if I'm running 5 webservers to support my traffic, and millions of people are using their PCs to view my sites.

Can anyone help me with a formulae?

Thanks

Answer 1

What you can do is determine the energy usage of each server, or all of them. You can do this by looking at kWh of the servers by looking at your energy bill. The hard part will be discerning the servers from other energy usages (lights, etc..). Or, see if you can find the Watt usage on the server. There are many ways to do this, but you need to get a good ball park figure of the kWh.

Once you have these numbers, you have to convert to kgCO2. A quick way of doing this is multiplying your kWh by 0.43, and you will end up with the number you're looking for. Obviously this is not perfect, as some of your electricity comes from natural gas, and some from coal, hydro, etc...

For instance, 55 kWh x 0.43= 23.65 kg of CO2 emissions.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I don't know. But I CAN tell you that it's a really insignificant amount.

Answer 3

go plant a tree and you'll be even up with the ecosystems.....