Last night I watched a lecture on BBC1 by HRH Prince of Wales (http://bbc.co.uk/i/lncxc/) where he talked about humanity’s environmental impact and the immediate need to adopt more eco-friendly practices particularly in business. Nothing new, but it got me thinking. Even though my consumption of raw materials and waste is negligible as a digital designer, there is no denying that in order to trade I need electricity to power my equipment, and this in turn means more CO2 emissions from the power stations. Every time someone visits a website that was designed by me, that visitor is also using energy to power their computer or mobile device.
This might seem quite petty and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but the figures soon add up. Making a quick calculation using figures found on the web, using my computer alone will generate about 280kg of CO2 this year:
iMac 20″ (Mid 2007) power consumption : 200W(1)
Average daily usage : 10 hours
Average weekly usage : 50 hours
Average annual usage : 2,600 hours
iMac power consumption per year = 0.2kW * 2,600 hours = 520kWh
CO2 emissions per year = 520kWh * 0.537(2) = 279.24 kg CO2
Sources:
(1) iMac (Mid 2007) – Technical Specifications – http://support.apple.com/kb/SP16
(2) Green Company | Simple Carbon Caculator (figures via. Defra) – http://www.nef.org.uk/greencompany/co2calculator.htm
So I intend to make a number of pledges to reduce my environmental impact and become more carbon-neutral. I acknowledge that they probably won’t cover my total carbon footprint by any means, but at least it’s something.
More details about my green pledges be published soon at http://www.benstevens.co.uk/green