Methodology for Calculating Carbon Emissions in the ENREX web offsetting Widget!

In this entry we will present the methodology that will be used for calculating estimates for energy consumption and carbon emissions that are generated by visiting certain websites. Websites that opt to enhance their green image with the brand new Enrex Widget appliance. It goes without saying, calculating digital carbon emissions is extremely difficult. The problems that these types of computations endeavour are:

• How does the estimate include the energy and materials required for a product’s or service’s operational stability?
• What about the energy required to host said product or service across multiple servers, cloud containers, and content delivery networks?
• How to measure the energy requirements of end-users interacting with said product or service across devices over time?

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To understand this easier, every possible thing you can think of within the realm of digital containment and manipulation — requires an amount of energy, therefore, emits a certain amount of greenhouse gases. Thanks to sustainablewebdesign.org research, we have a very clear and comprehensive diagram for understanding the whole network of energy-consuming segments:

Source: https://sustainablewebdesign.org/calculating-digital-emissions/

“The potential margin of error widens the broader your system boundaries get”

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Enrex’s take on these measures, thereafter, are the widest and broadest they can get. In accordance with the study by Anders Andrea, “New perspectives on internet electricity use in 2030”, we deem the proportionality of system segments proposed as accurate as it can get. These segments are:

• Consumer device use — end-user interaction with a given product or service. This accounts for 52% of the system, whereas returning visitors amount up to 25%, loading 2% of data (returning visitors use less energy through network use and data centre use as well).
• Network use — data transferred across the network, that accounts for 14% of the system.
• Data centre use — the energy required to house and serve data — 15% of the system. Enrex additionally uses the facilities of The Green Web Foundation, which helps us inspect whether the hosting site is ‘green’, because it also counts to further calculations. Because this number (15%) includes housing and serving data, it can be difficult to discern the appropriate estimate data for our calculations. In other words Enrex Widget only offset the visitor traffic and not the creation of specific data within a hosting sphere.
• Hardware production — the creation of the embedded chips — 19% of the system.

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The open methodology defines a certain number of formulae which can include specific variables relevant to a certain product or service. The set of relevant formulae are:

• Energy per visit in kWh (E):
• E = [Data transfer per visit (new visitors) in GB x 0.81 kWh/GB x 0.75] + [Data transfer per visit (returning visitors) in GB x 0.81 kWh/GB x 0.25 x 0.02]
• Emissions per visit in grams CO2e ©
• C = E x 442 g/kWh (or alternative/region-specific carbon factor)
• Annual energy in kWh (AE):
• AE = E x Monthly visitors x 12
• Annual emissions in grams CO2e (AC):
• AC = C x Monthly visitors x 12
• Annual segment energy:
• Consumer device energy = AE x 0.52
• Network energy = AE x 0.14
• Data centre energy = AE x 0.15
• Production energy = AE x 0.19
• Annual segment emissions:
• Consumer device emissions = AC x 0.52
• Network emissions = AC x 0.14
• Data centre emissions = AC x 0.15
• Production emissions = AC x 0.19

One More Addendum

In full disclosure, Enrex will offset via its Widget four times a year, i.e. every three months. In detail, this means, Enrex will gather the visit count to a particular website for three months and after that, we will issue and present the offset in the form of a renewable energy certificate (REC).

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