❗️❗️ Attention, please! An important disclaimer.
Since publishing this calculator, we have seen an excessive amount of backlash against NFT artists and collectors. We stand by our calculator as being the most fair and accurate way to calculate your emissions and responsibility, however we believe that this excessive backlash is counter-productive. Online protest and calls for boycott have damaged some artist's incomes and mental health, and has led to the cancellation of what would have been very impactful pro-climate fundraisers.
This backlash has not reduced the network's emissions and (almost certainly) never will. Please take the time to read this page and understand why.
Summary:
- Yes, your ETH carbon footprint will change depending on how much you use the network
- However, unlike an airline or a power-plant, reducing your activity (and footprint) probably won't reduce the network's emissions.
- This is because the price of ETH and the profitability of mining can fluctuate wildly without any change to the network traffic (see: tweets from Elon Musk, rumors, memes...)
- This is why we promote carbon offsetting and climate finance as our #1 priority. Pragmatic, quantifiable action is better than unproductive virtue signaling.
- Some people hate Ethereum. Others see great value in it and are staking their future on it. Whatever your opinion, please be nice to each other!
This is explained in a bit more detail below.
WHAT IS THE REAL CARBON FOOTPRINT OF THE BLOCKCHAIN?
Proof-of-work blockchain networks consume a very large amount of energy, which results in a very large amount of carbon being emitted. Best estimates place bitcoin around 45.8 TWh, emitting around 45,800,000 Tonnes of CO2 per year [1]. The annual power consumption from Ethereum activity is estimated to be 9.62TWh from September '19 - '20 [2].
[1] Stoll et al., The Carbon Footprint of Bitcoin (2019)[2] digiconomist.net/ethereum-energy-consumption
DO MY CRYPTO TRANSACTIONS EMIT CO2 DIRECTLY?
Not necessarily. Emissions come from mining (competing to solve proof-of-work problems), which is NOT directly coupled with transaction activity. Miners start mining because they wish to earn a profit. The more miners there are, the more emissions there are. When it is more profitable to mine, more miners will join the network.
We could place the burden of emissions entirely on miners, but that would not be fair to them, as everyone benefits from the stability provided by their mining power! For this reason, we allocate emissions based on your usage of the network, which represents the comparative degree of benefit you receive from the network. This is derived from Ethereum Gas units, which are based on the actual complexity and computational requirements of your transaction or contract.
WHAT IS THE METHODOLOGY BEHIND THE CARBON.FYI CALCULATOR?
Your wallet’s footprint is derived from the sum of Ethereum Gas consumed for transactions leaving your wallet, multiplied by a best-guess estimated emissions factor. The emissions factor was derived from the energy mix and geographic location of Ethereum mining pools. Read more about our methodology in the Offsetra Knowledge Base.
We are confident these numbers are very fair, accurate, and up-to-date. However you should be aware that this approach does not model nor predict the complex forces which drive future mining power and future emissions (see above).
WHY DO BLOCKCHAINS USE SO MUCH ELECTRICITY?
Bitcoin, Ethereum and many other blockchains utilize a proof-of-work as a mechanism for disincentivizing foul-play and enforcing consensus and agreement between validators.
Simply put, proof-of-work is an arbitrary calculation that must be completed for a block to be added to the chain. Because the completed proof-of-work calculation is used to derive the block hash, and the block hash is included in the next block's data, altering one transaction would require re-doing all of the proofs and regenerating all of the hashes for all of the blocks that followed! This makes it prohibitively expensive for anyone to re-write the chain’s history.
It also means that millions of computers are all racing to solve the same computational puzzle at the same time, so they can win a block reward. The collective computing power and energy consumption for this network is immense.
...SO WHAT CAN I DO TO BE A MORE CLIMATE-FRIENDLY ETHEREUM USER?
You should know: Ethereum has plans to migrate the network to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism which will completely eliminate almost all of the networks emissions. But what can you do in the meantime?
👉 Offset your footprint from now until the network is upgraded.
👉 Talk to your energy provider and ask if they sell renewable energy or RECs.
👉 Encourage your government to subsidize renewable energy and tax fossil fuels.
👉 Donate some crypto to political organizations with a real climate action plan.
👉 On behalf of yourself or your favorite mining pool, contribute some of your crypto trading or investment profits to your favorite carbon offsetting projects.
👉 Support us and our future endeavors in the carbon economy.
