Yesterday Y Combinator backed CO2Stats announced the launch of a fully functional version of their emissions measuring service for websites. The launch comes nearly a year after the release of a prototype widget that was designed to test the market and gauge user response. The idea eventually attracted enough press and positive feedback for the founders to take their service and calculations to the next level.
CO2Stats makes a website “green” by calculating its environmental footprint and buying green power (i.e. wind, solar) elsewhere on the grid to compensate. The service calculates not only the energy used to power a site’s server, but also the power used by client machines visiting the site. It turns out that visitors actually consume more power than the servers themselves.
The methodology for calculating energy consumption is extremely rigorous, as it must be for something like this to be accepted. The system takes into account geographic location of a site’s servers and visitors, time spent on a site, client device type (mobile, laptap, etc), and even the size of the page window on the user’s screen.
Sites supporting the service sport a clean energy badge that, when clicked on, displays CO2 emissions resulting from visitors, servers, and the network, along with a breakdown of the fuel types used to power the site and where the power was generated.
CO2Stats charges a flat rate that is dependent on the cumulative amount of power they spot their clients. This ensures that sites aren’t punished for peaks in traffic, and makes the idea more attractive to sites with a large userbase. The service could make it big if it becomes standard practice for companies to maintain a “green” web site. Electricity generation required for information and communication techologies is currently responsible for 2% of global CO2 emissions, and this number is only growing. Current clients include Gazelle, and a number of environmental awareness sites.
The size of the page? Really? Do you get x100 points for your site going down?
Stupidest ’startup’ I’ve ever seen. Is this for real?
Hey guys, less Al Gore, more Ayn Rand if you want to succeed.
PS: Do you guys have to cover every YC “startup???
YAGP – Yet Another “Green” Profiteer
As long as there’s a badge, so I can see and avoid companies dumb enough to buy into this.
Maybe I ought to sign up though, my sites are so devoid of visitors and content I’m singlehandedly saving the planet.
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the market for compensating for your carbon emissions a small niche one now in regard to cars/lifestyles? What makes these guys think that an even smaller niche would be popular? Are they banking on the “geeks-love-green” assumption?
Seems like a fad that will die once people get used to higher energy costs.
Aren’t the best startups started when the market is niche? Judging by the way that legislation and investment is going this market is going to be big.
As to energy costs – it seems that cleantech is becoming more affordable every year and will continue to do so. Solar power is growing at 30% a year in revenue which is pretty huge if you ask me. Either way the VCs are betting big in this area.
stupid startups keep coming from Y combinator.
Sorry I am normally positive about most startups, but this is bollocks and a waste of energy.
Does YC have a deal to get all of their companies featured in TechCrunch?
Sweet. Profiting from liberal guilt.
I have to agree this is sorta gimmicki. I am totally for green ideas I have one of my own but mine more in the realm of education. Activism is great as long as it is first person just giving someone money to make you feel better is lame. So many companies want to promote a green image that eventually it will become synonymous with mascara. As you now mascara improves every year and by now women’s eye lashes should be 10 feet long and and inch thick by their claims of new and improved best ever ads. Pretty soon every company and website will be so green based on their claims we will be off foreign oil. Do something real like conserve electricity, turn off your lights and turn up your AC. Oh and try slowing down while driving and combining trips to drive fewer miles. All of that is real not an image. If you still insist on giving money away to feel green I am taking donations to install solar panels on my home and get off of the grid, that is real. If you want a sticker for your website I can come up with something so you can brag.
http://www.FliteRecord.com
Fucking stupid assholes contributing to the problem and then appearing benevolent in showing how they can save the planet.
No one pissses me more then the one screaming – save the planet.
You cannot save the planet by shouting – “Look, how little I am fucking with it.”
Total morons.
Their logo looks like a pooping dog.
LOL – I can totally see the poop… The dog’s a bit of a stretch, but scrolling up to the logo made me laugh.
I’m all for turning off the lights when I don’t need them or saving a piece of paper, but I don’t think this one will work, it seems unrealistic. But who knows?
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
Eric Williams:
“I am totally for green ideas I have one of my own but mine more in the realm of education.”
The environmental psychology literature currently indicates that your idea is extremely naive and beneficial: people won’t magically start engaging in more pro-environmental behavior if you just educate them. Your ill-informed, gimmicky idea is also incredibly condescending. You assume that people will act but they’re just too stoopid. You’re ignoring reality.
Offsets are controversial in the environmental community, but you aren’t just giving someone money to alleviate guilt. Offsets are a way for individuals and organizations/corporations to give money toward producing cleaner energy. For the offset to be real, the projects that the money funds has to be something that wouldn’t already happen. And yes, there are crappy companies that don’t sell true offsets and they do suck.
That said, the tips you offer are helpful ways to reduce one’s consumption.
How is this site going to survive. People, unless they have to by law, aren’t going to purchase this service. Their only hope is if sites are forced to monitor their “carbon footprint.” Otherwise this service is neat, but completely useless. How much energy does a site like this pump out?… http://www.read...ex.php?RTA=web2
Any semi-intelligent company of a reasonable size is already monitoring their carbon footprint, not because they legally have to (yet), but because they want to be seen as being part of the solution to the world’s problems, not part of the problem itself ie. marketing.
Some people will. There are green hosts that people use. Many people buy carbon offsets for their car, air travel, or home.
Certainly you could have gotten away with saying “MOST people [...] aren’t going to purchase this service.” But the definitive statement? That’s just unreasonable and trollish.
It makes me wonder about Y-Combinator if retarded ideas like this can get funded. You have to give them credit for actually having a business model though.
I KNOW! It’s soooooo retarded, what with them having paying customers and offering a service in a market that will likely only grow (e.g. when the next Congress considers carbon cap and trade or a carbon tax).
But your name is Bob, so you probably know better.
I am somewhat saddened by this. Sure, their plan will help financially boost alternative energy, but it does not address the root problem. It’s a band-aid. Until more and more IT infrastructures adopt more efficient technology (primarily in datacenter cooling), ’services’ like this will amount to not much more than an end-user guilt salve.
It’s surprising how many IT departments at large corporations are woefully ignorant of the options out there to radically boost their DC’s efficiency. Not only would increased awareness on the physical level reduce their energy consumption considerably, but it would also tremendously reduce their operating costs.
Paying for something like this that has ultimately unquantifiable real world returns is irresponsible on a business level, unless your only real goal is to capitalize on your users’ guilt. (Which is admittedly a great tactic, I suppose…)
Great point Nick. I wonder though if a program like this that helps companies see the actual cost of their current practices might help catalyze fundamental consumption changes. Like how higher gas prices are significantly reducing the number of miles Americans drive.
Or they could just pay for the service, put the badge on their website, and continue to waste away.
It would be fantastic if something like this could affect change in datacenter energy usage. I highly doubt it will.
I’m in the industry (DC design, etc.) and can tell you that I’ve been in front of numerous big-name companies here in the Silicon Valley that refuse to change their IT practices or infrastructure despite the fact that they’re horribly inefficient. They are spending literally millions more per year than necessary on energy.
Why? A number of reasons:
1. It’s easier to buy offsets than to change the physical infrastructure.
2. The costs to achieve a “Best Practice” scenario are more immediate than energy costs (despite being much lower…)
3. Not wanting to rock the boat. Classic “if it ain’t broke…”
4. Many IT professionals fear that after saving the company millions they’ll be given a laurel wreath and a pink slip. Energy efficiency = more uptime = less work = human redundancy.
5. Etc, etc, etc.
All this to say that there needs to be a fundamental philosophical shift in the IT world in order for any major changes to occur. Even the dangling carrot of massive financial savings isn’t enough for a lot of companies. It’s almost as though they’re waiting for legislation.
Don’t get me wrong. I think co2stats probably has a place in the industry, and I appreciate what they’re trying to do. It just seems to me to be part of the problem instead of the solution. The emphasis needs to be placed on reducing current usage, not buying eco-indulgences.
Wow these guys are brilliant:
http://www.alex...stinctions.html
So THAT’S why YC did it… it’s beginning to make sense.
These are by far the best tech crunch comments I have ever read. I hope one day to be successful enough to have “distinctions” I have declined.
Go ahead folks – try to destroy a good idea. I guess that’s what you do when you don’t really have one of your own.
Thanks for the news!
I’m green now!
And they’ve got clients: http://www.co2s...com/clients.php.
Imagine that, a web-based company that actually has CUSTOMERS. Hmmm…..
Is CO2Stats buying carbon credits to offset its OWN CO2 emissions?
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.
Wow so much negativity. I think it sounds like a fantastic idea.
Many conferences I have attended lately have a speaker talking about how to go green and this sounds like a fantastic way for tech businesses to do so, so long as there is room to offset the emissions by providing clean energy into the grid where it would have been supplied with ‘dirty’ energy otherwise. When this is not the case, there will be no need for such a service and everyone will be happy.
Even if it does not become a killer service, it is still a lot better than many others popping up and is for a good cause.
From the number of unnecessarily negative comments, I get the impression that there are a lot of readers here who hate to see others succeed, are jealous of the TC coverage, or think that if they would not use a service themselves that it must suck.
Wow, I am amazed by the volume of sheer negative and unsubstantiated comments here. I think it’s fine to disagree with carbon credits as a way to deal with emissions you’re responsible for, but the problem remains:
Computing promises to be one of the largest polluters in the near future (more than air travel), and anything that raises awareness about this I welcome.
From what I can tell from their site, they’re trying to put together a pretty comprehensive model of the carbon footprint of a website, so what’s wrong with that?
To the negative posts :
You seem like you are on some one’s payroll to be stupid!
Maybe just a rare person – in tech and also with awareness of environmental issues.
Are tech smarties not green? Maybe only the successful tech folks have a brain to be green. Less Ayn Rand more Reality.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. The whole green movement is just a business, nothing more. Buying Carbon Credits = Buying Indulgences
If you want to reduce energy use and so reduce CO2 emissions you need to charge more for energy. Offsets are just an artificial mechanism.
In the UK gas (petrol to us) is the equivalent of $10 per US gallon.
That makes people use smaller more fuel efficient cars and use them less. Also smaller cars use less energy and resources to manufacture.
The real market of real costs is the only way to reduce energy use commodity use and CO2.
Buying credits only offsets guilt, it does not address the underlying problems of scarce resources.
(Oh and get used to the figure of $10 a gallon its coming your way sooner than you realise.)
P
Haines@5:26pm, duh, CO2 is not pollution; it’s natural.
Also, as long as they think it’s important to be as accurate as possible in computing the so-called emissions from computing, what about including ALL of the costs of wind and solar? Look at the land that wind takes up. What are the costs to service the equipment?
I suspect many of the costs are simply ignored.
We need to decide based on the economics – which includes quality of life information.
On the plus side, it’s starting to look like that more and more people are figuring out that this human-caused Global Warming is really a scam and many of the people behind it aren’t very genuine. http://director...earth-over.html
My god is this the most idiotic “startup” ever or what?!