What carbon footprint do your appliances tread?
June 4th, 2012
A new USA system called Leafully aims to measure how much energy household appliances are using so that home owners can work out their carbon footprint.
Got an energy intensive fridge? Plant more trees!
Leafully is a Seattle start up and it has the backing of the US Department of Energy.
It is based on an application that measures power use by accessing information from a houshold’s energy provider. It uses this to figure out the home’s approximate carbon footprint, which is indicated by how many trees need to be planted to offset this. Users can access the app on their computer monitors, which in turn will also be measured!
Furthermore, it determines high energy usage appliances and then offers ideas and advice for how to lower this, such as purchasing modern, energy efficient appliances. Or, how to reduce phantom energy, power which is consumed even when an appliance is on standby mode.
According to some analysts in Australia, standby power may be costing the nation over $1 billion annually.
Leafully is not unlike an Australian innovation announced last week where ‘smart plugs’ measure an individual appliance’s energy consumption so that users can better understand power usage in the house.
Carbon footprint from the appliances causes a lot of problem
to the environment and health. It is responsible for green house gases emission
which is creating problem for the ozone layer. Climate is changing in a rapid
way and the basic reason behind that are carbon footprints. Resources are being
depleted because of this as well like deforestation activities.