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by Jens E.
Original Post: How green is your software?
Feed Title: MyEclipse Blog
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If you‘re concerned about the environment, you may want to take a closer look at how your software (yes, software) purchases are impacting the world around you.
You may consider doing a bit of research to see how much companies you're purchasing from are contributing to a large carbon footprint.
For instance, a certain household-named technology company has 386,558 employees. Based on carbon calculators, in order to offset this footprint, they would have to donate upwards of $43 million just to offset the "typical" cost of doing business. This may seem like a lot, but for a company that netted $98.8 billion in revenue it's really, staggering enough to say, merely a drop in the bucket.
Of course that offset amount is not an exact figure, as it's difficult for an external entity to take into account all of the air travel, conferences, paper waste, commute times, etc., that such a large company would create. Regardless, it's a jarring number, and reflects the low end of overall environmental impact.
Many companies are getting on board and "going green." And, whether a company makes a $1 billion per year or $1 million per year, offsetting carbon footprints is usually a mere fraction relative to profit. Large or small, we can all do our part.
We recently shared with all of you Genuitec's commitment to protecting the environment, which means our commitment to offsetting our entire carbon footprint (which is perhaps easier for a smaller company to calculate, but nonetheless significant.) Read more about our partnering with CarbonFund.org to make this goal a reality.
It's important to stay aware of how large and small companies are impacting the environment. With a small effort on the part of everyone, we can leave future generations of programmers a world just a bit greener than we found it.
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