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@ -49,21 +49,21 @@ Maybe your digital service provider such as your chat app or photo cloud, is run
![](/u/image/energy-source-by-country.jpg) ![](/u/image/energy-source-by-country.jpg)
Most people don't really know or care where their data is physically at. We kind of know what's bad with fast fashion or disposable plastics - that they are easy to use but destroys our environment and creates too much carbon emission - and the same logic applies to our digital data. We need to think about the easy options out there are in fact very bad for the environment, say the messanger or the community chat everybody around you uses, or the cloud that just comes with your device by default. In the meantime the [IT service industry grew as big as aviation industry in terms of carbon emission](https://time.com/46777/your-data-is-dirty-the-carbon-price-of-cloud-computing/) and now it takes about 2% of total global carbon emissions. So it is really about time we start to feel towards and act responsible with our digital choices. Most people don't really know or care where their data is physically at. We kind of know what's bad with fast fashion or disposable plastics - that they are easy to use but destroys our environment and creates too much carbon emission - and the same logic applies to our digital data. We need to think about the easy options out there are in fact bad for the environment, say the messanger or the community chat everybody around you uses, or the cloud that just comes with your device by default. In the meantime the [IT service industry grew as big as aviation industry in terms of carbon emission](https://time.com/46777/your-data-is-dirty-the-carbon-price-of-cloud-computing/) and now it takes about 2% of total global carbon emissions. So it is really about time we start to feel towards and act responsible with our digital choices.
You can start by finding out where your data physically is, and what kind of energy the infrastructure uses. Most of the times it's not that hard to find out, and if it's hidden, you need to request the information to be disclosed to your provider. Where are they keeping their servers, and what is the energy source they are using? Are they running servers with coal or other fossil fuels? Or nuclear power? O renewable energy such as water, solar or windpower? So to reduce or avoid your digital carbon footprints, you can start by finding out where your data physically is, and what kind of energy the infrastructure uses. Most of the times it's not that hard to find out, and if it's hidden, you need to request the information to be disclosed to your provider. Where are they keeping their servers, and what is the energy source they are using? Are they running servers with coal or other fossil fuels? Or nuclear power? O renewable energy such as water, solar or windpower?
## Zero Carbon VS. Carbon Offset ## Zero Carbon VS. Carbon Offset
This should be an obvious point, but it's not always so obvious for most of us. Zero carbon emission from the energy source (meaning produced by 100% renewable source such as water or solarpower) is a better choice than carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting, roughly translates into using whatever energy source available (say coal or nuclear) and paying money for funding projects for reducing the CO2 already added to the air. Carbon offsetting is a solution with its own goals and values, but it is not an answer for our critical environmental situation especially if we have zero carbon as an option. Imagine, when a glass is full, not adding any drop to it would be the best approach if we do not want to overflow the glass. When you pay attention to the energy sources of your digital services, you see that some of the digital service providers are claiming they are green because they do carbon offset. Then we need to ask, will carbon offset can be an answer for the current environmental crisis we are in?
The short answer is a no. Imagine, when a glass is full, not adding any drop to it would be the best approach if we do not want to overflow the glass. What we need right now is zero carbon emission from the energy source (meaning produced by 100% renewable source such as water or solarpower) and not carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting, roughly translates into using whatever energy source available (say coal or nuclear) and paying money for funding projects for reducing the CO2 that are already added to the air. Carbon offsetting is obviously better than not offsetting, but not emitting CO2 from the energy source is better than CO2 offsetting.
## How to go Zero Carbon? ## How to go Zero Carbon?
To reduce carbon emission from the cloud there are two ways to do it. One is find the ones who are doing zero carbon already, and move your data there and support them so the renewable energy can be the norm. This will also encourage the new players coming into the cloud market to start clean as zero carbon. Two is pushing your cloud provider to change how they are running their servers and go fully renewable. This will help forcing the bigger players in the industry to change. There are two ways to reduce carbon emission from our digital data. One is finding the ones who are doing zero carbon already, and supporting them by using those instead of others. This will also encourage the new players coming into the IT service market to start clean with renewable energy. Two is pushing your digital service provider to change how they are running their servers, to go fully renewable. This will help forcing the bigger players in the industry to change.
But for those who are capable, we want to say that go for the first option. It is for the same reason as the zero carbon vs. carbon offset. When there are those who already doing the right things, go with them now, instead of continuing with those who promise to reach their goal in coming decades. But for those who are capable, we want to say that go for the first option. It is for the same reason as the zero carbon vs. carbon offset. When there are those who already doing the right things, go with them now, instead of continuing with [those who promise to reach their goal in coming decades.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-20/amazon-s-emissions-bigger-than-some-rivals-trail-walmart) We are running out of time and can not afford waiting for big corps to lead us: we need to do things we can do as fast as we can.
## Use the small and renewable digital services
## Our Story of Building Zero Carbon Cloud Infrastructure
In some regions of the world, going zero carbon is much easier than other parts. Take our case in Switzerland for example, we have electricity generated by hydropower from the Alps. We have in-house hydropower generators few meters away from our servers, built from the time when Swiss textile industry made most jeans of the world. The textile industry all left to other countries with cheaper labour cost, leaving vast, empty factories behind perfect for sitting servers inside. This is how we started our datacenter, with things already built from the past, reusing hardware and reusing infrastructure, and running things only with renewable energy.
We offer Zero Carbon options to people who are looking for ways to really reduce their daily digital carbon footprint. For example Zero Carbon Cloud is a monthly cloud storage plan that is a sustainable alternative to Google Cloud (which plans to reduce their CO2 emission by ....) or Dropbox (Which hosts with AWS).
Zero Carbon Chat is a chat app that can replace Slack