What is my Laptop’s Carbon Footprint?
Technology has never been smarter than right now, it has never been faster, and it has never been better. It has millions of applications and it leaves it up to us to decide. Another thing that is at an all-time high is the temperature. It is warmer than ever before, and climate change has become one of the direst problems of our generation. Thanks to technology, our carbon footprint is larger than ever. Carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular individual, organization, or community.
One of the things I wanted to do was learn more about the hardware of the technology that I use and the impact it has on the environment as well as the electricity usage that goes with the devices. With recycling, composting, eco-friendly diets and so much more, we do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint. So, I decided to calculate the carbon footprint of my laptop and the amount of electricity I use daily.
According to Apple’s environmental report, the production of my laptop resulted in 135.5 lbs. CO2e and over its life cycle, it will have generated 388 lbs. CO2e total greenhouse gas emissions. Looking at the power usage, if the laptop is plugged in and in use, its power consumption is 8-25W. This means that if I use my laptop for 8 hours per day, my power consumption for the year ranges from 23.36 to 73 kWh. That means that my laptop emits between 36.4 lbs. and 114 lbs. of CO2 every year. A 10-year-old tree absorbs almost 48.5 lbs. of CO2 per year. Taking the average 75.2 lbs. as the amount produced, this means that for my laptop alone there need to be 2 full grown trees to absorb the emissions. Meaning that I would have to plant 2 trees each year for the carbon footprint of my laptop to be 0 in 10 years’ time.
Notice that a big chunk of the greenhouse emissions is generated from the production of the laptop and so one way we can reduce our carbon emission is by elongating the life cycle of our gadgets. I would say that extending the life of the laptop can go a long way in reducing its carbon footprint. When the demand for a new model will drop, so will the supply meaning fewer devices will be produced annually thus reducing the carbon emissions significantly.
Additionally, charging the laptop takes about 60 Watts per hour so depending on how long you leave your device plugged in, you could be using a lot of energy as well as money. Since electricity is not tangible, we don’t realize how much we use or how much we might be wasting. Just by leaving your charger plugged in, you are consuming electricity that you don’t need to. Similarly, we leave the lights on during the day, not realizing that they are not being used, to we might leave them on even after leaving the room. This is another area where we can do our small bit to help reduce wastage and our bills.
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