CO2e Emissions of Digital Actions in Perspective
What does 1g of CO₂e mean? How bad is one single AI prompt for the environment? How does this compare to driving a car or even taking a plane? To sort this mess I tried to start a list of actions (including digital actions) and to give them a “CO₂-price-tag”.
I am not the first trying to get an idea how all the things compare. Mike Berners-Lee wrote a book called “How Bad Are Bananas?” where he lists a lot of everyday activities and their carbon footprint. Nonetheless I could not find a list comparing digital actions. So this is a starting point. I intend to expand this list over time and in the end to create a comprehensive overview as data visualization.
Where do the numbers come from?
For data transfer online there is the Sustainable Web Design Model. It basically adds the numbers of three relevant segments: 1. Data centers, 2. Networks and 3. User devices. More information can be found on the page.
For other actions I rely on different sources, which I try to indicate as clearly as possible. However sometimes I could only find a range of values. In these cases I tried to pick a value in between.
CO2e Emissions of Different Actions
- 1x avg. page load – 0.36g CO₂e
Source: https://www.websitecarbon.com/ - 1x AI prompt (1.5g–4.32g, 10–30x more than google search) – 3g CO₂e
Source: The growing energy footprint of artificial intelligence, de Vries, Alex, Joule, Volume 7, Issue 10, 2191 - 2194
https://deteapot.com/chatgpts-carbon-footprint-how-much-energy-does-your-ai-prompt-really-use
https://piktochart.com/blog/carbon-footprint-of-chatgpt/ - 1h Netflix streaming (55g–100g) – 80g CO₂e
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/netflix-binge-watching-carbon-footprint/
https://about.netflix.com/en/news/the-true-climate-impact-of-streaming - 1km car drive (Assumption: fuel consumption 8l/100km) – 330g CO₂e
Source: https://co2.myclimate.org/de - 1x flight Zürich – Hamburg – 217kg CO₂e
Source: https://co2.myclimate.org/de - 1x Macbook Pro (Avg. of Apple: 301kg and co2 everything: 394kg) – 350kg CO₂e
Source:
https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/14-inch_MacBook_Pro_PER_Jan2023.pdf
https://www.co2everything.com/co2e-of/apple-macbook-pro-16 - 1x bitcoin transaction – 550kg CO₂e
Source: https://communities.springernature.com/posts/bitcoin-s-climate-challenge-new-study-reveals-alarming-carbon-footprint-of-cryptocurrency-transactions
https://www.dnb.nl/en/publications/research-publications/analysis/the-carbon-footprint-of-bitcoin/
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption - 1x flight Zürich – Australia – 4.2t CO₂e
Source: https://co2.myclimate.org/de - Aviation sector global – 423 million t CO₂e
Source: https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/new-sustainable-web-design-model-changes-the-context-of-internet-emissions/ - Energy consumption global internet (1021 TWh) – 491 million t CO₂e
Source: https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/new-sustainable-web-design-model-changes-the-context-of-internet-emissions/ - Average page weight – 2.6MB
Source: https://httparchive.org/reports/page-weight?start=2014_06_01&end=latest&view=list
Berners-Lee, Mike. How Bad Are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything. Greystone Books, 2011