Forest Impact

Why it’s important to offset websites’ emissions

Every year, a website releases several kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When a website is used, data is transferred to and processed in remote servers. The electricity consumed by these servers and by our computers accounts for 2% of the world’s air pollution, as much as the airline industry!

For this reason at Tree-Nation we have developed what we call a “Offset Website label”, a simple tool that allows us to make any website CO2 neutral.

How does the label work / Our label technology

Our label algorithm allows us to obtain an accurate estimation of the emissions of any particular website. We base our calculations on the Alexander Wissner-Gross’ study which estimates 0.02g of CO2 emitted per web page displayed. The Offset Website label, when placed in a website’s footer, counts the web pages displayed and then calculates the CO2 emissions by multiplying the number of pages displayed by 0.02g.
Once we know how much CO2 a website is emitting, our system automatically calculates the trees that need to be planted to offset that amount and this information is transmitted to the planters along with the funds required to plant the tree.

Keeping track of a website’s impact

To ensure transparency, a Offset Website label links to a page that displays statistics of the CO2 offsets, the number of trees planted along with information about the company that is using the label.