This work by Matthew I. LeVeque is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Jan
31
Carbon Offsets for Paid Search Impressions
January 31, 2009 |
ON THE COAT-TAILS of my Google GreenWords paid search program idea, I am now looking into developing a program to help offset the CO2 produced by the storage of paid search data.
In the news recently there was a bunch of chatter about how much power was generated for each search made on Google. The initial report suggested that each search produced 7 grams of CO2 which was disputed by Google and others. According to Google, each search produces 0.0003 kWh of energy which is equal to roughly 0.2 grams of CO2. Based on this data my thought would be to develop a carbon offset program based on paid search impression data which, for all intents and purposes, is the same as search data.
With that in mind, I took a look at the number of impressions from our Google AdWords MCC for the month of December which equaled roughly 550M. Based on the Google estimates above, 550M impressions equates to roughly 166,000 kWh of energy and 245,000 pounds of CO2. To put that into perspective consider the following:
166,000 kWh is equal to:
1. 143M Calories, enough food to feed 1 person for 200 years!
2. 39M BTU, an air conditioner big enough to cool the Comcast Center in Philadelphia!
3. 4,557 Gallons of auto gasoline, enough gas to drive 127,500 miles (@ 28MPG) or around earths equator 5 times!
245,000 pounds of CO2 is equal to:
1. the weight of 7 grey whales!
2. the weight of 83 Toyota Prius Hybrids!
3. the weight of 12,273 cases of beer (probably enough to last 1 person for 200 years)!
Now assuming my math is right and the Google estimates are correct, that is a lot of power and waste created by a fraction of paid search data stored around the globe. This massive amount of power usage and wate is also the reason Google has their green initiatives program in place. With such a massive footprint in play, finding ways to reduce it is the responsible thing to do.
So now that I’ve identified the carbon impact of the 550M impressions what can be done to offset the impact of this footprint and how much does it cost? Good questions. For starters there are lots of ways to off set your carbon impact. One example would be to purchase carbon offset credits that invest in renewable energy. Another option would be to use the carbon offset credits to buy and plant trees which in turn consume CO2. A great example of this is being implemented by the search engine Ecocho.com which is powered by Yahoo! Ecocho estimates that every 1,000 searches is equal to 2,000 tons of CO2 and 1M searches allows them to buy 2,000 trees.
The cost of buying carbon offset credits is a little harder to determine. As I write this I have inquiries into the Carbon Fund and TerraPass - two companies that specialize in helping individuals and businesses offset their carbon footprint. Once I have an idea of the cost to further develop this idea I’ll follow up with another post.
The overall purpose for developing a program such as this, for one, is to do the right thing and be held accountable for the power and waste we profit from. Sergey and Larry realize that for Google to achieve long lasting sustainability they need to be energy conscious and accountable. Additionally, it aligns the paid search marketing industry with vendors and customers up and down the value stream- Google and their Green Initiatives progam and potential clients who are more willing to work with agencies with like-minded corporate social responsibility values.
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Comments
3 Comments so far
I’ve read this blog post twice and I still can’t figure out if you’re serious, or just making crystal clear how completely non-sensical the whole sustainability movement is.
Assuming you’re serious, I must conclude that one or both of the following is true:
a) you operate a search engine based in the developing world and want to sow the seeds for Google’s destruction at the hands of less sustainability-minded competitors;
b) you hope to profit by selling PPC carbon offsets to guilt-ridden eco-bunnies; or
In case it hasn’t hit home yet in your neck of the woods, the global economy is heading into a prolonged depression whose effects on Mr & Mrs AdWords Advertiser will make carbon offsets seem as quaint a notion as Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.
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